A GREAT PIANIST

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21158, 6 July 1940, Page 13 (Supplement)

A GREAT PIANIST

FRIEDMAN IN SYDNEY FAMILIAR THINGS PLAYED A large audience at the Town Hall thoroughly enjoyed the first concert nf Ignaz Friedman, says the Sydney Sun. The pianist’s programme, consisting generally of familiar music, and excluding the “ cerebral ” compositions which make no appeal to any but the intelligentsia, took us back to the old days. There was the Chopin bracket, without which no concert programme was complete 25 years ago, the Schumann “ Carnaval,” and minor compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, and Gluck. Finally, there were two typical Viennese waltzes. Apart from the popular character of this collection, there was the interest in a pianist whose pianism ran the whole gamut of emotional expression, who was able to use the piano orchestrally, and obtain also the most delicate effects and shadings from music of widely differing character. Interesting: and Powerful Most interesting and powerful was his playing of the fiery little B Minor “Bagatelle,” from Op. 126, of Beethoven. with its quieter second section. based on a long pedal note. As a contrast, there was the graceful A Minor Rondo, of Mozart, melancholy in its echoed phrases, and its suggestion of Keats’ line: Joy, whose