New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-03-14
the values which he has arbitrarily given them.

Those values are all outside the music. no mat
ter how ingenious and appropriate they may
appear to the heightened fancy OF one whose
mind Is on the verbal programme. Consort
dramatic or lyric text with music and the de-
vices may derive justification from the WORDS:
hut in purely instrumental music the arbitrary
purpose OF a composer cannot replace the Sig
ni1cance which must lie in the music ITSELF mat
is. in emotional content composer may AFTER
the beauty Of a phrase by inverting It. but IL
does not follow that the inversion carries with
II sense Of the antithess of It's original emo
tional proposition Yet I; is upon the recogni-
ton OF the ingenuity and skill which strauss
has applied In analogous procedures that the In
terest OF nine-tenths Of his "Zarathustra music
lies What The Tribune said about the work
last December Is strictly and literally true.
There IS no essential difference between the
method of Richard Strauss and that pursued
by Kuhnau more than two hundred years ago.
when In his y. blical sonata entitled GIDEON
he dellneated the miracle OF the fleece ana the
dewy by introducing melody 10 stand Tor the
dewy fleece and the dry ground, and then re-
versed It TO stand for the dry fleece ana the
dewy ground.
No mistake was made in proclaiming mat
Josef Holman would arouse popular en-
thusiasm second only 10 that which followed
MI Paderewski everywhere on his American
tour Two things stand in the way OF his reach
ing the full measure OF Paderewsh's success
the first Of which is purely physical That eie-
ment of such q success which lies in the adora-
ton Of gushing misses and sentimental! Games
not an nconsiderable one by any manner u
means-is embarrassed by the fact tha' tie
artist Is too old for boy and too smaI lot d
man At his age many virtuoso has appeared
fully ripe. but il is impossible to keep down
sense Of wonderment that Hoffman, Is apIe 10
accomplish his feats. He still looks the pro'ley'
though in all respects but taste and feeling his
playing is mature as II ever need De TO hoiu
the admiration Of the world The immaturites
implied point 70 the second obstacle. HIS play
ing is in many respects like Mr. PaderewskTs'
though more like his master Rubnsteins. But
both of these masters possessed taste. intelh-
eence and feeling in the highest degree. and
made technique subservient to their publication
Rhapsodies they were both of them in the an
Gent Greek sense. inspired persons who derived
q mysterious power from the composer whose
music they played the late Professor JoWet
would have described them following Plato They
made US think less of the pianoforte than Hof-
mann does In extraordinary plenitude ne pos
sesses the gift of the pianoforte virtuoso we fee
that there is no nuance Of expression which will
not answer to the pressure or the blow OF his nm
ger but with all his command Of color, dynamic
variation character Of tone. We are never GER
tain that the voice we are hearing is the voice
in which the composer tried TO speak TO US TOO
often we hear not a poetic utterance hut
pianistic effect. And so again on Friday ana
Saturday it was in the music written for the
sake Of the pianoforte rather than in that writ
ten for the sake OF music that he compelled the
Judgment to wait in startled wonderment Feats
like his performance of the SChubert-Tauslg
Marche Militaire. and Sant-Saenss transcript
ton of the chorus of the Dervshes from Bee
thoven's Ruins of Athens, are not only De
widening but they recall the best features OF
Rubinstein's playing-for Rubinstein, too, de-
lisbted in amazing us with his own powers and
the capacity Of the pianoforte as a representa-
tive Of the puissant orchestra. II was as II the
adora bic Russian had returned 10 life and to US
when his pupil began to work up that climax IN
the Marche Mtaire. which ne used to give
US in the march from THE Ruins of Athens
Like him. Holman bring his hands down
with a thunderous bang upon the keys yet seem
at the last only to press the full, rich, homo
geneous forte which follows: and when he draws
out a. chord. full sweet. gentle. by placing his
hand on the keys and seemingly pushing them
down by relaxing the tension of his forearm. his
fingers seem 10 drip the luscious melody as did
those Of Mitonian Eve when she made wine in
the Garden Of Eden
For drink the grape
She brushes. inofensive must"
There are no charms in the pianoforte which
are not at his command, but he does not al
ways hit upon the one most consonant with the
musical idea. This suggests, as do all the COM
positions OF his which he has permitted us
to hear Che has played three. Of which Theme
and variations, ending with fugue is far away
the besD the still undeveloped state OF his pure
" musical powers. So. too, we fancy that with
greater experience and more diligent application
10 the study Of the contents Of the pieces which
he plays from their musical side he will be a
trfe less indifferent 10 rhythmica groupings in
extended passages than he is now. He certainly
is not deficient in rhythmical sense. But where
will he stand among his contemporaries when he
is master musician as well as master pianist?
VIII he have peer or rival2