A WORLD OF MUSIC

Southland Times, Issue 22969, 15 August 1936, Page 6

A WORLD OF MUSIC

Thirty Years Of Memories THE GREATNESS OF DEBUSSY People who have known one celebrity are always interesting. There arrived in Invercargill yesterday a man who has known personally and worked with many of the best musicians in the world to-day, who has been manager for Kreisler, Paderewski, and Pavlova —indeed introduced Pavlova to Europe —who helped Debussy to his present fame, and who prizes as a great possession a telegram sent him by SaintSaens, the great French musician, whose secretary he had been. The telegram had been sent after Saint-Saens had retired, and it read: “What will become of me without you?” The visitor who spoke of a Europe where once music and art had no frontiers, and where audiences rioted in enthusiasm, was Signor Guido Carreras, manager and husband of La Meri, the dancer whose two-night season began yesterday at Invercargill. He discussed his own life work, his enthusiasm for the theatre, and people he had known with a reporter of The Southland Times yesterday. “I have been fortunate that my lite collided—shall I say—with a generation of musicians and artists not only prolific in quality but exquisite in musicianship,” said Signor Carreras. “As everyone knows there has been a revolution in music in the last 30 years, with the change from the romanticism of Schumann and Schubert to the modernism of such men as Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov. It was my good fortune in my youth to have been associated with the centre of that revolution,” he said, and from the reminiscences he gave Signor Carreras has an acquaintance and friendship with the greatest artists the world now knows. He knew them in their youth—when Debussy had holes in his shoes and not the price of his lunch.

Composers and Virtuosi.

His connection with the world of music and art in which his life had been spent began actually at school in Bologna, he said, where a class-mate had been the famous modern composer, Respighi. Then when very young Signor Carreras went to Berlin where he began a lifelong friendship and association with Busoni, whom Signor Carreras described as the most striking pianistic figure since Liszt. , Signor Carreras was more than Busoni’s friend and secretary—he arranged each detail of his commercial and artistic life. Busoni was then the centre of musical life in Berlin—at that time, in 1905, the centre of the music of the world. There in Busoni’s company Signor Carreras met such men as Debussy, then young, unknown and very poor, Schonberg, and Mahler, the great symphonist, and composer of the “Symphony of the Thousand,” the first performance of which Signor Carreras organized in Vienna.

Then in addition to the composers there were the virtuosi looking eagerly to the development of their careers. The young Kreisler, Mischa Elman and Heifetz, all that generation of younger pianists and violinists had been there in Berlin, and Signor Carreras had mingled with them, and enthused with them at their developing talent. Every artist then to be a success had to have a successful concert in Berlin first. If he were successful there, all Europe knew and welcomed him.

“But, alas, it is very different now,” Signor Carreras said. “The world has been so chopped about. In those days there were no frontiers—one travelled all over Europe without a passport—but now an artist could be famed in Vienna, and not known or heard of in Berlin or in Rome. There is no longer the interchange of artists.”

With Pavlova.

Signor Carreras has one distinction that makes him known throughout the world. He took Pavlova from the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg to Berlin, and introduced her to Europe. He had been in St. Petersburg with other artists and had seen the ballet in the Imperial Theatre. It had been perfection. Soloists who were to lead the world in dancing were just a part of the show in that ballet, known the world over, Signor Carreras said. It so happened that every so often there were golden moments in art. That ballet in St. Petersburg had been one of them, as the Flemish school of painting had been another, and the list of famous composers in Germany in Beethoven’s day had been another. Signor Carreras spoke with particular pride of performances that Pavlova had given in Oslo, where a national festival with a week’s dancing had been one of the happiest times he had ever known. Pavlova had danced at each evening performance, and La Meri each afternoon. Lighting and stage arrangements had been perfection, enabling the staging of the most beautiful phantasies. It had been the best week of dancing Signor Carreras had ever seen.

The Russian Ballet.

That Imperial Theatre ballet in St. Petersburg was usually known as the Russian Ballet to English-speaking people, Signor Carreras said, but it was really the Italian Ballet. The instructor of it was Signor Cechetti, who had been famous at La Scala, Milan, and had been brought to St. Petersburg by the Czar of Russia.

London was the centre of dancing to-day, Signor Carreras said, although it was also true to say that, because of the innate conservatism of the British, it lagged behind other countries of Europe in the development of the art. Nowhere else were there so many schools of dancing as in Britain, and nowhere else was the ballet so popular. Signor Carreras had been manager to Kreisler, Paderekski and many another world-famed artist, but he counts as his outstanding achievement the part he played in bringing Debussy into public favour as the genius he was. Paris had refused to have anything to do with the young pianist. He had come to Berlin, Busoni had heard him and said to Signor Carreras: “You manage the commercial side, and I will manage his music,” and for two seasons concerts had been given in Berlin. It had been an uphill fight with public and Press. Busoni had given orchestral and solo concerts for two seasons, paid for at his own expense, and suddenly Debussy w'as appreciated. His influence had spread since then, and was obvious on modem music, with Ravel as an outstanding example, Signor Carreras said.

Signor Carreras was enthusiastic about La Meri and her art, and qualified every remark with “I am not saying this merely to praise her.” He had known no other artist but Duse, he said, who could make so many facial changes by thought alone without changing make-up. It was a matter not of the one dancer dancing 15 numbers, but of 15 different personalities on the stage. He concluded his interview with the comment: “If you think I have been all bluff, come and tell me so after the show.” There was no answer to the challenge.