, 1893-05-17
Musical Notes,
By FLORA KLICKMANN, A. &C.
(Sylvia's Journal, April 1881

Schumann this month, as Miss Adelina de
Lara 80 recently appeared in these pages, but
circumstances have been too strong for me.
The arrival Of Miss Ilona Eibenschjtz in
London a few weeks ago, the enthusiastic
reception accorded to her undsniable genius,
and her charming personality, led me to hope
that our readers are not yet too weary of
pianists to feel IN interest in the clever girl
whose portrait is now before them. Of one
thing [ au firmly convinced If they only
saw and. heard her themselves, they would
readily endorse my eulogies, and even add q
lengthy postscript of their own. Unfortu-
nateIy, photographs at best are never entirely
satisfactory. especially when the charm of a
face is largely due to an everchanglng ex-
preston; but as this is one of the few def
ciences Of the art, for which, as yet, there is
no remedy. | must hope that sooner or later
Miss Eibenschutz will make a tour in this
country. thus enabling many more to enjoy
the delight of hearing and seeing her, than
will be possible while she only plays in Lon
don. However unlike in detail the caree" of
one successful artistic may be from that Of an
other, there is a prominent feature which will
inv ariably be found in ALA tremendous
amount of hard work and in this respect our
heroine is no exception to the rule.
Miss EibenSchUtz was born at Buda-Pesth
on Nav 8th 1872. The whole of her family
are musical, and it was not long before she
gave evidence of unusual talent, and played
by ear anything she heard. When she had
attained 10 the mature age of five, she play
ed to the Able List, who strongly advised
her entering the Vienna Conservatoire, where
she was Immediately placed under Professor
Hans Schmitt, the same ."ear making her
debit at a concert in Vienna. There is some
thing almost pathetic III the thought Of a six
year old little maiden working away at a
Conservatoire: but it is possible that a judi
cious admixture of dolls was Introduced to
break the grave routine Of technical studies,
scales and Bach BY the time Miss Ilona was
thirteeen years old, she had given concerts i'll
Russia. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany,
and France; and had played before the En-
press of Russia and tn, Que II of Denmark.
She then gave up the Conservative. and be-
came a pupil of Clara Schumann, with whom
she studied indefatigably for four years, ceas-
ing the while to give public performances.
This interval of rest must have been most
necessary to her health; the excitement of a
professional life, and lhe incessant travelling,
quite apart from he amount OF practice needed
to keep an instrumentalist up to concert
pitch, soon Tell on the strongest constitutions;
we frequently hearOf musicians being utterly
Frustrated from nothing but sheer nervous
exhaustion. One marvels how the frail or
ganisation of a child-and a highly sensitive
child, too-could ever survive such an ordeal.
She did survive, however, reappearing among
musical celebrities in 1890, and giving ample
proof that the years spent with the Queen
of Teachers had been anything but wasted.
She was first heard in England in January,
1891, at the Popular Concerts" and every
little detail of one special afternoon comes
wildly to my mind as | write. A sweet look
ing girl Whose beautiful eyes one cannot
easily forget, dressed in white, walked grace
fully across the platform, and took her seat
at the piano. Her unaffected simplicity
would have predisposod the hardest heal ted
of audiences in he's favour aud her playing
would have satisfied the most critical. There
WIS absolute silence in the thronged hall, then
an exquisite melody, enveloped in delicate
%arpeggi, broke the stillness-'such a soft,
Aoatlng. witchery of sound, as twilight elins
make Very few in that great assembly re-
quiz ed their programme to tell them it was
the Prelude to Mendelssohn's .'Fugue
in E Minor" which is perhaps one Of the
best known of classical pia1oforte solos. The
Fugue followed the prelude of course !; calmly
almost sorrowfully. it commenced but as the
speed increased, one scarcely breathed lest a
note Of it should be lost and when the eli
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