Every note lives, with the whole vitality
of its existence. To Swinburne every word lives, just in the same way;
when he says "light," he sees the sunrise; when he says "fire," he is
warmed through all his blood. And so Pachmann calls up, with this
ghostly magic of his, the innermost life of music. I do not think he has
ever put an intention into Chopin. Chopin had no intentions. He was a
man, and he suffered; and he was a musician, and he wrote music; and
very likely George Sand, and Majorca, and his disease, and Scotland, and
the woman who sang to him when he died, are all in the music; but that
is not the question. The notes sob and shiver, stab you like a knife,
caress you like the fur of a cat; and are beautiful sound, the most
beautiful sound that has been called out of the piano. Pachmann calls it
out for you, disinterestedly, easily, with ecstasy, inevitably; you do
not realise that he has had difficulties to conquer, that music is a
thing for acrobats and athletes. He smiles to you, that you may realise
how beautiful the notes are, when they trickle out of his fingers like
singing water; he adores them and his own playing, as you do, and as if
he had nothing to do with them but to pour them out of his hands.
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