The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-08

that only the most manly resolution and
 power of endurance would have ena- bled him to arrive at his point of deX- terity and agility on the keyboard; and we marvel at the number of fOrcible, violent contradictions contained in that one frail frame. Others have wondered before US. It is now fully forty years
 since the late Stephen Heller, himself
 a considerable pianist as well aa a
 small though sincere musician, wrote to a friend of his on the subject and made some remarks that differ from the re- marks of the ordinary musician in that
 they indicate considerable intelligence. I quote from that eXcellently edited and
 written journal, the Boston Musical
 Record:
 I believe that the childish disposition of the majority of great virtuosos (and Lszt is not an eXception), is the result of long and brutalizing work performed
 by their hands, which, by the way, were never created to execute the Salto mor- tate on the tight-rope piano. Not with impunity does a man practice ten hours day for fifteen or twenty years at twisting his hands and preparing them for gymnastics which are contrary 10 nature. Some of these virtuosoS become childish, obstinate, capricious. Others have cracked intellect, as Liszt, who has intellect, but it is of an unWhole- some, unhealthy kind.
 The would-be virtuoso during his t1f- teen or twenty years ct really never takes so long) is not merely making his fingers do things they were not intended to do, but is also thinking all the time of his public, of doings in way that will fetch" the public: and when he make his appearance he must go on thinking of his public harder than ever. It is not enough to play the piano well; if he wants to gain one of the big prizes he must interest the public in his per sonality, must eXaggerate all the pecu- liarities of that personality, must do eV erything in the world to isolate self in the general mind from all other pian- ists I need not remind my readers Of the lodges affected by pianists of late with a view of separating themselves from the mass of their colleagues and rivals Some adopt very long hair; oth- CTS behave at the piano so as to make one wish they could be put in monkey cage at the Zoo and given a dumb pi- ano to amuse the children with their antics others again have their aston ishing private histories made very, very public; and so on. Seeing that these games as rule succeed, and that the successful artist must submit to be petted by ladies, one cannot wonder at the large proportion of pianists who are, as Heller said, cracked and who have also become mere toys or pets
 No player can devote himself to get ting the best out of his instrument; he must spend years in learning how to put qualities into it, or rather, in learn- ing how to pretend to be putting quali- ties into 1t. Half the modern technique is simply a mass of fakes. To initiate the trumpet by hammering out harsh tone, to initiate the flute by sealing about swiftly in the upper register with the soft pedal down. to initiate string tremolos and rolls of the drum-these things have no connection with the tech- nique of a genuine art; they are fakes, dodges: they are on no higher artistic level than the tricks of a conjurer who brings wriggling rabbits ont of coun- try bumpkin's ears. A life devoted to learning these tricks is not a life to keep men manly Also a conjurer does not pretend to be more than a conjurer, but the piano virtuoso has all the wies to pretend to be an artist He may be an artist. It is true, Ioam glad to say, that he often is an artist.-Saturday Re- view.