He seems to touch the
notes with a kind of agony of delight; his face twitches with the actual
muscular contraction of the fingers as they suspend themselves in the
very act of touch. I am told that Pachmann plays Chopin in a morbid
way. Well, Chopin was morbid; there are fevers and cold sweats in his
music; it is not healthy music, and it is not to be interpreted in a
robust way. It must be played, as Pachmann plays it, somnambulistically,
with a tremulous delicacy of intensity, as if it were a living thing on
whose nerves one were operating, and as if every touch might mean life
or death.
I have heard pianists who played Chopin in what they called a healthy
way. The notes swung, spun, and clattered, with a heroic repercussion of
sound, a hurrying reiteration of fury, signifying nothing. The piano
stormed through the applause; the pianist sat imperturbably, hammering.
Well, I do not think any music should be played like that, not Liszt
even. Liszt connives at the suicide, but with Chopin it is a murder.
When Pachmann plays Chopin the music sings itself, as if without the
intervention of an executant, of one who stands between the music and
our hearing.
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