THE IDEAL IN MUSIC

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2162, 19 August 1907, Page 4

THE IDEAL IN MUSIC

.WHAT MADAME CARRENO SAYS. ■ ()i unii-.su technique must bo nc-jiiin-d lirst,” said Madanto Carrcno, in the -course of an interview with , “Sydney itos-iri’ujj Herald” reporter. •How to-.dd one “iterprot groat works without a good technique? But 1 it ices not tome all at onco. My tocli.dqiie is far superior to what is was ,vhon l was a girl, and I hope it will go on improving. 1 love to come ,ioros3 a dillicult passage, and a real ■uxeU"-. • : d wild: away at it until 1 have it under control. “What is tho hardest piece I know? All pieces by modern composers aro cry difficult in parts, so aro those r Beethoven and Chopin (to play properly). •

“I should never let anyone practice more than five hours a day; because it is impossible to concentrate for longer than that, and all work at. the piano should bo done artistically, even scales and oxorcises. Do I believe in scales? Certainly.” Madame Cnrreno has a fairly small band, with short plump fingers. Her strength lies in the back of her hand, and her span is very large, consirl ering tho size of her fingers. She can stretch a tenth, so that Rubinstein's second study can bo “played, as it should be, by her. “Long fingers arc really a drawback as they cannot cover the ground fast enough It was my ambition lor years to stretch a fifteenth (double octave), but I don’t worry about it now.” Madame Cnrrcno’s wonderful power over the instrument consists not alone in strength of arm or wrist, but in teno production. The touch that belongs to her is a native gift, and is really, she says, animal magnetism. She has often charmed away neuralgia and headaches from her pupils in a few moments by the “laying on of hands.”

“The real secret of my playing is relaxation. I can make my hands and arms do what I like, oven when 1 have not touched tho piano for five weeks, as on the voyage hero. 'When I am playing I am not exerting myself, ns people suppose, except in tho bravura passages. lam resting. A piano recital never tires mo. The meaning of music? Ah it means one thing to you, another thing to me. That is the beauty of our art, and what makes it so for above all others. If fits all moods and fulfils all aspirations. The explanations given to some well-known pieces are too fanciful, and were probably never thought of by their composers. The Appassionato. Sonata is often referred to Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest.’ There is no evidence in Beethoven’s biographies that he had over read tho play. The last movement was undoubtedly inspired by a thunderstorm, but to call the first part the meeting of Ferdinand and Miranda, and so on, is—well, pure imagination. But this is an age that loves impossibilities. We see pictures that no one can understand, poems that- are supposed to mean all sorts of tilings that don’t, and music in which people “see voices and footsteps,’ or try to think they do. “Of course some compositions are undoubtedly tone-pictures, and were intended as such.' Among these I inculde Chopin’s A-flat Polonaise, and liis prelude, known as the ‘Raindrop.’ Chopin was my childhood’s idol, and as I met many of his pupils, I got them to tell me all they could. Tho ‘Raindrop’ Prelude was composed when he was staying in Majorca with Georges Sand. He was beginning to think that he was losing her love, and sat down to the piano while slio was out marketing, They were living in an old ruined cloister, and Chopin imagined he saw the monies go round the square in procession nM tho time tho rain was dripping through the roof. “I think that everyone should cultivate whatever musical talent one may possess. Women especially, who have many things to bear in life know that thre is no con-clcr more powerful than music. Lif i without music would be impossible, and I liopo to play as long as 7. live. Tlni what a counsellor music is! If I liavj an important question to decide, I always go to the piano for three hours.”