Berlin Enjoys Piano Recitals
By Eugen d'Albert and Busoni
Berlin has had an opportunity of late to enjoy the contrast involved in piano recitals by Eugen d'Albert and Ferruccio Busoni. D'Albert, whenever he plays, plays to a crowded hall. Yet, according to a Musical America correspondent, "by nature one of the greatest pianists in the world, d'Albert is also one of the most antipianistic of players. The composer in him does not allow the pianist to touch the keyboard, but urges him to rush on it as though filled with hatred - and he really does hate the piano - thus revenging himself for the technical deficiencies resulting from want of practice. No other artist could dare this with the same success. D'Albert is too impatient to linger on a lyric passage, and when he realizes that some difficulty is approaching, his mighty hands and nervous feet join in the work of overpowering the composer with an infernal din. Brahms' F Minor Sonata, Grieg's Variations in Form of a Ballad, and Liszt's B Minor Sonata were in this way quite deformed by the player. But whenever d'Albert plays Beethoven he is superior to any other pianist, even his fingers falling readily into line with their polyphone task."
Busoni's recitals have come after an interval of six years, the years of the war. The number of hearers who attended them was exceeded only by those who formed the audience at the Berlin Fritz Kreisler concert. At Busoni's recitals the presence of a great number of music-students was also noticeable. Busoni's hair has become grey, but his profile is as fine and clean-cut as ever. When he plays he appears absorbed in the task of interpreting his program. He has reached maturity and shows it in a display of mastership which seems to presuppose a knowledge of all the secrets of technique from the beginning. Chopin's Preludes, Beethoven's B Flat Major Sonata, Op. 106, and the Liszt-Paganini Etudes gave Busoni an opportunity to show his art at its best. He has never before been able in the same degree to lend his playing that brilliancy of color which often completely changes the lines of a work; yet in his case one never misses Beethoven when hearing Busoni. But he has the artistic good sense to refuse to play encores his audiences demand.
