MUSICAL MEMORIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3536, 29 May 1912, Page 8

MUSICAL MEMORIES.

FEATS OF PLAYERS

It may be said without risk of contradiction that the majority of the great musical virtuosi disclose more or less remarkable powers of memory. But even among this class there are some who loom so large asi to dwarf even the exceptionally endowed among their confreres. A typical example is that, of the late Hons Von Billow, who, as the tradition goes, played “everything by. heart.” He could play for hours at a. time without consulting his notes; knew all the works of Wagner by heart, and thought it a hardship that the. musicians of the orchestra were unable to play their individual parts in the same way. When a composer brought him a, new score he would excuse himself, and, passing into an adjoining apartment, take a. hasty look at the manuscript. Returning thence in a few moments, he would seat himself at the piano, and, without a glance, at the notes, play the entire composition, to the great, bewilderment, it may well be imagined, of the listening author.

PRODIGIOUS

Liszt, too, who is said to have played, among much else, most of the works of Beethoven from memory, is another instance of prodigious memory. More extraordinary than the feats of musical memory of etiher Liszt cr Von Bulow are those told of Rubinstein, of whom it is said that, in a protracted series of concerts, he played upon the piano more than a thousand compositions, embracing about everything of value in the repertoire of that instrument. The violinists, too, afford numerous examples of preternatural memory. Most of the great violinists—Kreutzer, Viotti, Rode,-Corelli, Tartini, Baillot, Spohr, Paganini, De Beriot, Vieuxtemps, Sivtori, Ernst, Ivreisler and many others—have given evidence on countless occasions of the possession of unusual powers of memory-

LIVING EXAMPLES

In New York may be heard one of the great flute virtuosi of the world, George Barrere, whose repertoire, already large, increases continually without manifest effort. Most wonderful are the illustrations of musical memory afforded by certain conductors of the orchestra. One of these, Cehvillard, conducted from memory nearly all the symphonies of Beethoven. The same tiling had previously been done by Wagner. At the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Toscanini directs night after night almost every style of opera—ltalian, French, German and what not—without the aid of a sing’e note. What is implied by an achievement of this sort can only he adequately appreciated by one who has studied the huge score of one of the modern lyric dramas.