Word: paganini
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...Smeterlin is to give a recital in Jordan Hall this Saturday afternoon, and he has chosen a program which is both interesting and well-balanced. Beethoven's Sonata in G major (opus 79) is the first number and it is followed by the impressive Brahms Variations on a Paganini theme. Works by Raval, Albeniz, and Chopin complete the list. It is, of course, Mr. Smeterlin's execution of the works of the last named composer which has brought him his greatest fame, but whether he chooses to play Chopin or Ravel, he is always a magnificent artist who is well...
...nearing 50 and his long greying hair gave him something of the diabolic appearance of Paganini. He went to Rome with his faithful Princess; in 1865, after he discovered they could not get married, he took minor orders in the Roman Church. But the Abbe Liszt had not given up music. By degrees his oldtime popularity returned to him. He was invited again to Weimar for a part of each year. Hungary formed an Academy of Music, put him in charge, greeted him so exuberantly that he played the piano for the populace from a balcony. Like an aged Byron...
...Abbe Franz Liszt. Jascha Heifetz was Johann Strauss, conducting the orchestra with his violin bow and fid- dling as the spirit moved him. Piano-Maker Theodore Steinway tried to impersonate bigheaded Richard Wagner. Violinist Albert Spalding caused a momentary stir when he came before the court and said: "I, Paganini, am not dead." He played none too well, and when Soprano Frieda Hempel did her old Jenny Lind act, she sang off pitch. But nobody minded, especially when Soprano Bori came forward. Soprano Bori that evening was Adelina Patti, dressed in crinoline, a wreath around her hair. "I, Adelina Patti...
Menuhin hates gushing. A lady once rushed up to him, said: "You play just like Paganini." Menuhin asked her if she had ever heard Paganini. He sees few of his press notices. They are being kept for him until he is 20. Yet once when he happened upon a particularly rhapsodic screed his comment was: "But I have no good spiccato. I have no staccato. I play my double-stops out of tune, my vibrato is bad and my trills terrible...
Mozart's A Major Sonata, Schumann's Arabesque, Brahms' Variations on a theme by Paganini, smaller quantities of Chopin, Debussy, Albeniz-such was the varied course which Iturbi chose to run. Because he had played Mozart with the Philharmonic, his audience was not surprised to hear him endow the Sonata with a cool, fresh beauty seldom equalled. The Brahms technical difficulties were topped at a speed which was never bewildering. Debussy, despite its mistiness, had structure, clarity...