New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-11-03
DEBUT OF A
NEW PIANIST
Success Despite Unnecessary
Gloom for Carl Friedberg
in Carnegie Hall.
BY II. Z. KREHBIEL.

Through a eemi-gloom, artificially
created, in Carnegie Hall yesterday al
ternoon Herr Carl Friedberg emerged
into the ken OF some few hundred New
Workers as a pianOfOrte virtu0so; or,
better, since he proved himself worthy
Of the designation, as an artistic player
upon the pianoforte. He emerged in
5his capacity only. What he looks like
as q man will be learned when he
throws Off the affectation which makes
persons Of sound aesthetic and intellec-
tual stomachs feel a contempt for
pianoforte music and all its yotaries,
and steps forth into the normal light
Of the concert platform, regardless OF
the shock which may be administered
thereby TO the young women who want
20 worship at the shrine Of long hair
and the pallor of imagined suffering.
His stage entrance was, no doubt, ar
ranged 20 harmonic with the prelimi-
nary proclamation that in him New
York was 10 make acquaintance with
"the Poet of the Pianoforte." Now. a
poet is not proclaimed either by low
lights or long hair, whether he speaks
in words or in tones, but by his utter
ances; and il is a deserved, perhaps
even a high, tribute TO Herr Friedberg
when il is said that he won recognition
for his art in spite of the barriers
which he placed against its recogni-
ton. II is an everlasting pity that the
story ever became known that once in
a salon in Paris when Chopin and List
were pitted against each other one or
the other Of them asked that the lights
be extingushed Since then every silly
sentimentalist, at the pianoforte or in
L,r ID Ia+
zeal pianists talk best in a twilight, and
all intellectually and emotionally sane
people have had 20 be half ashamed Of
their love Of the art.
Herr Friedberg may or may not have
been thrown upon our shores by
the European war. That question has
no significance. He is here. lie
breaches no new eyangcl, nor is he
likely 10 widen our knowledge Of
pianoforte music or quicken our ap-
probation of its beauties. But he
can give pure and high pleasure by
his playing. He reads his music
Alright, and he knows how to make his
vehicle eloquent. He does not out
rage il in an effort 20 astound, nor de-
grade it through q desire 20 make it
contribute to mere "lascivlOus pleas
lNH-. nc HAS 4 EooN pbtiAtolt VI NitN
virility of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms
and Chopin these were the compos-
ers whom he undertook to interpret
yesterday, and he knows that the
three immortal BIS do not always and
necessarily speak in the voice of the
Juror teutonicus nor the Gallicised
Pole in the accents of the female
boarding school. First Of all he knows
the capacities of the pianoforte its
dynamic powers and their limitations
and the sensuous beauty Of its voice.
Euphony, clarity of utterance, nice
graduation Of dynamics marked the me.
chanical part Of his playing of every
thing from the Bach-Liszt Fantasia and
Fugue in G minor to the last of his
Chopin pieces, the large intermediate
steps being Beethoven's Sonata IN h
major. on. lO9. and Brahms's Ballade
in G minor; also deep feeling for
their emotional conceits as well as
their aesthetic beauty.