Harold Bauer plays Beethoven Sonata No.14 "Moonlight" (I)

Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, op.27 no.2, "Quasi una fantasia", composed in 1801. PART I : - Adagio sostenuto PART II : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... '>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - Allegretto - Presto agitato ~~~ Bauer speaks in his "Harold Bauer, His Book" - Part I : I was always profoundly impressed by the entrance of the performers onto the stage of St. James' Hall. They came up a small staircase to the left of the piano. First one saw the head, then the body, and finally the magnificent feet which brought them before the audience. I remember noticing that the men performers always looked straight in front of them, while the ladies kept their eyes down, and I thought that must be to avoid stumbling over their long dresses as they came up the stairs. But it was the tops of their heads that fascinated me, and I wondered if some day some little boy would look down on the top of my head as I came up the stairs. I do not think there were very many concerts during the winter. I went whenever I could and very rarely paid for admission. The usher in St. James Hall knew me and generally passed me in without a ticket. Whenever I could, I took a seat at the side of one of the music critics. There were two reasons for this: First, I knew that they had received two tickets and usually came alone; second, I wanted to listen to what they said about the music and the performance. The critic I liked best to sit next to was an ill-dressed young man with a large red beard. His name was George Bernard Shaw. I heard him once utter the word "monkey" when Vladimir de Pachmann was making antics at the piano, and I was deeply shocked. De Pachmann, in my estimation, was a genius to whom everything was permissible, and I could not bear to have him ridiculed. Shortly before, he had made a sensationally successful debut at one of Mr. Wilhelm Ganz's orchestral concerts, and everyone was talking not only of his playing, but of the reply he had made to a lady at a fashionable reception. It was customary, of course, to address all foreigners in the style established by Mr. Podsnap, namely, with great emphasis on each word for their better understanding. "And what.." said the lady very slowly and distinctly, "does Mousseer de Pachmann think of London?" The response was immediate and extremely rapid: "Zat iss not ze question, Madame. Vot does London sink of de Pachmann? Zat iss ze question!" What impudence! said everybody. But his fame as an eccentric dated from that day and has always paralleled his fame as an artist. I paid a shilling to hear the great Anton Rubinstein at one of his historical recitals, waiting for hours with the crowd until the doors leading to the top gallery were opened. This stands out in my memory as a most exceptional occasion. I don't remember any such crowds for any other concerts (this was long before Paderewski had revolutionized the behavior of the English concert-goer). How I wish I could recall the playing of that great man! But alas, only a few scattered impressions remain. There were two concert grand pianos on the stage. They had come from Russia, made by Becker. I wondered why one piano was not enough, even for the greatest of pianists. But I found out soon enough. Something broke string, hammer, or key? under the master's mighty blows, and he transferred to the other. During the intermission a mechanic repaired the first piano, to which Rubinstein returned later, when the second went out of tune. I remember wondering how he could see with so much hair falling down over his face. I remember his impatient gesture as he dashed away a small flower thrown by an admirer, which lodged on the top of his head. One of the pieces on the program was Schumann's "Etudes Symphoniques," which I remember solely because he failed to turn into the major key at the point indicated on the very last page, and played the major chord only once instead of twice. Was it a lapse of memory, or did he purposely make the change? I shall never know, but the effect is so fine that I have always played it that way. The rest of the program, for all that I can recall, might have been the celebrated "Valse Caprice" played over and over again. I do not remember anything else. How grand, I thought, to be able to play all those false notes so fast and so loud! Why, after all, should a great artist be under the same rules and restrictions as a common person who, whatever secret ambitions he might cherish, must never play wrong notes? Nothing else remained of that recital except my sense of having participated in a musical experience with one of the Sons of God, and this gave me an extraordinary feeling of exaltation. I never heard Rubinstein again. (...) Continued on PART II : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... '>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... ~~~

Channel: Music
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: xper2xper

Length: 05:00
Rating: 5.0
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Tags: Harold  Bauer  Beethoven  Sonata  No.14  Moonlight  Quasi  una  fantasia  op.27  no.2  Kempff  Solomon  Gilels  Horowitz  Arrau  

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