There we have weight as well as
sharpness; these giants fly. It was curious to hear, in the vast
luminous music of the "Rheingold," flowing like water about the earth,
bare to its roots, not only an amplitude but a delicacy of fine shades
not less realised than in Chopin. Wagner, it is true, welds the lyric
into drama, without losing its lyrical quality. Yet there is no perfect
lyric which is made less by the greatness of even a perfect drama.
Chopin was once thought to be a drawing-room composer; Pachmann was once
thought to be no "serious artist." Both have triumphed, not because the
taste of any public has improved, but because a few people who knew have
whispered the truth to one another, and at last it has leaked out like a
secret.
PADEREWSKI
I shall never cease to associate Paderewski with the night of the
Jubilee. I had gone on foot from the Temple through those packed, gaudy,
noisy, and vulgarised streets, through which no vehicles could pass, to
a rare and fantastic house at the other end of London, a famous house
hospitable to all the arts; and Paderewski sat with closed eyes and
played the piano, there in his friend's house, as if he were in his own
home.
Pages:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212