11
MUSICAL COURIER
March 23, 1922
Ignaz Friedman
CHEERED MASTER PIANIST
AN EXTRAORDINARY DEMONSTRATION FOR IGNAZ FRIEDMAN YESTERDAY.
A Technic Dumbfounding to the Audience, but Technic Was Only Half the Tale—Pole’s First Kansas City Appearance.
,'Not in many years, certainly not in the memory of the younger generation, has there been such piano playing or such a' response to piano playing as there was yesterday afternoon when Ignaz Friedman appeared on the stage of the Shubert Theater. At the , end there were cheers; not one, but many.
E “There was nothing incongruous in giving one
I! niankf a rprpnti'nn that would have heen hie־ enoueh
lest any should wonder at there being only four, it should be explained that yesterday was the seventh day in succession Friedman had played recitals and that tomorrow night he will play in Lawrence. There had to be a limit somewhere.
ALMOST INCREDIBLE REFINEMENTS. “Yesterday’s program began with three numbers from spinet and harpsichord days, a ‘ballet’ arranged from Gluck by Friedman, Mozart’s A minor rondo, and a Flummel rondo in E flat. Excepting one or two phrases, the entire group never rose above what might be called a ‘piano.’ It seemed inconceivable that there could be so many gradations of tone downward ; from soft notes like bells heard from a distant hill, down to an infinitesimally fine thread of tone, so pure as still to carry perfectly throughout the theater.
“The result was so unusual and unexpected the audience hardly understood. The music was none too familiar, and the effect perfectly novel. Twenty-four variations and a fugue on a Handel theme, by Brahms, followed, and left a memory of passably interesting music fused into a gorgeous whole by a technic so vast that it could not be obtrusive. It was Brahms, but Brahms clarified almost to the Mozart stage. Very difficult, it appeared easy, and it added a crashing climax and all the gradations downward, to the list of Friedman tonal accomplishments.
REVELATIONS IN CHOPIN.
“Having established his ability to do anything he chose with his piano, the Pole entered a group of familiar Chopin pieces. The Opus 62 Nocturne was made ravishing by the, apparently, simple device of picking a note out of a sustained chord, letting the rest of the chord die out, and then taking up the thread of the piece with a note so fragile as to seem one of the overtones from the string already sounding. The three studies, the ‘Butterfly,’ the ‘double note,’ and the C major, were started at such a dizzy pace that it seemed humanly impossible either to retard or accelerate the tempo.
“The Opus 42 Waltz, and the almost equally familial fantasie impromptu, Opus 66, were Friedman arrangements’ in everything but the notes; there were even a few extra notes tossed in. The Opus S3 Polonaise seemed at one instant to be a glittering spray of notes, and at the next a succession of rolling chords from the pipes of an organ behind the velvet curtain. The sensation of achieving such effects must be almost enough compensation for the lifetime of study required to produce them.
CHEERS FOR LISZT’S ״TANNHÄUSER.”
“The last group combined the effects of the other three. Friedman’s ‘Musical Snuffbox’ was delicate and whimsical and humorous. The pianist’s Barcarolle was a picture of a sea calm, and troubled, and calm again. His arrangement of a Gaertner Viennese waltz is in no danger of meeting the fate of the Paderewski minuet—it is' too difficult. And the Liszt arrangement of the ‘Tannhäuser’ overture aroused the audience literally to cheers. Nothing so tremendous can be imagined coming from a piano. But it was there. Nor was it an orchestral effect; the music seemed to come from a gargantuan piano.
“After the Chopin group there were two encores, ’Elle Danse,’ by Friedman himself, and the Chopin Mazurka. After the ‘Tannhäuser’ there were two more, a companion piece of the programmed Viennese dance and the Liszt ‘Campanella,’ with which the pianist played as a boy might with a curious toy.
“To force the audience to leave, the curtain was dropped. They would cheerfully have stayed through another two hours. An unprecedented technic, combined with an equally unprecedented musicianship, was quite enough to hold them.”	J. A. S.
—Kansas City (Mo.) Times, Feb. 15, 1922.
The
PIANIST
WHO
THRILLS
“If you want to be thrilled, hear Friedman—audience went wild with excitement.”
—Max Smith, N. Y. American.
“The audience cheered.”
—Deems Taylor, N. Y. World.
“Everyone arose and called him out time and again.”
—Washington Star.
“Audience cheered and stamped as at a political convention.”
— Toronto Saturday Night.
“Quite sure that no pianist has ever stirred his auditors—laymen and discriminating musicians alike—to an ever higher pitch of enthusiasm and abandon.”
—Colo. Springs Telegraph.
60 Concerts in United States, Canada and Mexico Prove Countrywide Favor
Nov. 10 SYRACUSE
16	PITTSBURGH
18	GRAND RAPIDS
20	CHICAGO
*22 MT. VERNON, Iowa 28 ROCK ISUAND, 111.
*30 SPRINGFIEUD, Mo.
Dec. 2 BROOKUYN (Boston Orch.)
3	NEW YORK (First Recital)
*5 ANN ARBOR
8	TORONTO
9	BUFFAUO
12 WASHINGTON 15 NEW YORK (Second Recital)
18	NEW YORK -(Bagbv Musicale)
19	NEW YORK (Hippodrome)
21	NEW YORK
Jan. 5 BOSTON 7 AUBANY 9 DETROIT *13 ROCK HIUU, S. C.
*17 APPUETON
19	ST. PAUU
20. MINNEAPOUIS 26 NEW YORK
Feb. 4 NEW YORK (Third Recital)
7 YOUNGSTOWN 10 COLUMBUS *13 EMPORIA 14 KANSAS CITY *15 LAWRENCE
17	DENVER
20	COLORADO SPRINGS *24 LINDSBORG
Mar. 1 CINCINNATI 2 CLEVELAND
4	CLEVELAND 6 ST. LOUIS
9 ROCHESTER 10 BOSTON
14 GREENSBORO, N. C. *16 SPARTANBURG, S. C.
April MEXICO
(18 Concerts)
*9 Colleges or Schools.
Sole Direction for MR. FRIEDMAN, METROPOLITAN MUSICAL BUREAU
DUO-ART RECORDS
Aeolian Hall, New York City IN AMERICA 1922—1923 NOW BOOKING
STEINWAY PIANO