FEATS OF MEMORY

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1932, Page 8

FEATS OF MEMORY

| •’ .REMARKABLE MUSICIANS. -■ ■ ; I - Everyone, says la Rochefoucauld, com'■pl 3 •’ is. q£ -His. memory.- No -.one' complaint of his judgment; But the Frenchman was I wi.lhig bJore-the-advent-of the virtuoso of .the piano.. 'He- is not' as others are.' -His.memory may give him ground for genial . seif-depreciation .in -s-a other . things. But—and.it is. a very, large but—once he, becomes a 'pianist he : ceases to belong .to all -the world of humanityin. eluded in .Rochefoucauld’s, observation. His imemciry- then is no longer.ia't level whiqh by. depression <. may; exalt . tpat nobler ; quality: of the! mind—judgment, writes . H.. E. Wortham :in . the London -Daily Telegraph. ■ = ’ .When : Liszt copied the ..example of .hl? native Tz.ig.an.es, and started/tq play from memory -at hi? recitals he-set a fashion which has »npw. Qoni'e' 0 bp a. matter of course. To .play • th® piano now is.- to play/ it. from, memory... 1 do pointer:?, moment suppose' that Herr Schnabel, if you. asked; him, would admit -to thqre being anything the . least remarkable, in his thus playing. the. whole of- the Beethoven sonatas. So far, indeed,: from his thinking it so, he told me-the. other day. how once, when,he was in Hanover, he. happened to see a poster’ advertising just

such a series of piano’recitals. The pianist was Gieseking—then still a studentfledging his wings with ~this eagle flight in his native town. . - Were Herr Schnabel to make ’an inventory of the - whole wealth: of music stored in that accurate/ ’mind, ; Beethoven’s sonatas would probably, form only, a modest'fraction. I have 'heard tit claimed for Professor Tovey .(.who knows ■ his Beethoven, as well as any other living I musician) that he /carries the. whole pf i Bach’s clavier music’ in his head-i Suites, J Partitas, the “Forty-Eight,” land aU. Mr. ! Harold Samuel also-must bp pretty ' well • up in his Bach;.\vhd’teases the, memory. : as Beethoven ingyer-'does; ; L . Herr Moriz-Rosenthalha’sthe wholeof , Chopin by. heart. • He will give, you thei context’ of ’any- two; bars,', though when M.. CottQt:.jestingly.' tiled him. /with -a ; couple. consisting. only. ..of.' a. had . to: be given .the’tonality ijs’well' bofor* i he could identify, the particular bars in ‘ the B flat minor Scherzo. i Mr. Herbert > Fryer .-’.is 'another, master - .pianist who i. could probably-write bitt the whole of ; ;Chopin’s , works; ,if, every...existing. copy t and plate of.hismusic.were. destroyed, i I need." say nothing abqut the •MW ■ side of'. pianists’ memories. They fau i much- more Often than think —andt if’ pianists could .afford to be candid we might hear; -.them,, too, justifying : la Rochefoucauld's epigram. . . I' : . > .