Review of Josef Lhevinne's Recital

The remarkable art of Josef Lhévinne was displayed in a piano recital that he gave in Carnegie Hall last evening. It is an art that has grown notably in the years that have elapsed since his first appearance here; not only in the transcendent powers of his technique but in the ripening of his interpretative powers.

Mr. Lhévinne cannot be called a deeply imaginative player; or one who communicates an emotional flame to his listeners. He keeps his heart in a place where claws cannot peck at it. Yet his performance leaves the impression upon those who hear it that they have been put into close contact with the composers; there is little intervention of a personality when he plays Beethoven's sonata dedicated to Count Waldstein as he did last evening. A close approximation to Beethoven's intentions seems to have been conveyed. D'Alberts transcription of Bach's D major prelude and fugue sounds not only big and sonorous but built up with a definite exposition of its structure-perhaps a little more rapid in tempo than the character of the music warrants.. but, nevertheless remarkably clear. In at least the B minor and the C minor etudes of Chopin a magnificent effect is produced: and in the Impromptu in C minor and the Ballade in F minor, if the passion is restrained, the exposition is clear and unencumbered by anything extraneous to the music.

Mr. Lhévinne's technical powers have been developed to such a pitch and have been refined and polished to such a degree that no technical difficulty any longer interposes any problem between the music and his performance of it. There is no visible effort in anything he does, and no attempt whatever to divert attention from the music itself to the manner in which it is played. His tone has always seen remarkable for its richness, color and delicate gradation, and is remarkable for those qualities now.

Besides the pieces mentioned, Mr. Lhévinne played a group of Debussy, Medtner, Liszt and a "Campanella" said to be by Liszt-Busoni. Is it possible that Paganini had anything to do with it, or himself "started" anything in connection with it?

Richard Aldrich