title="Pg 5"/> the pianist can achieve in the way of colour may be likened to what the painters call "monochrome." For in reality the piano, like any other instrument, has only one colour; but the artistic player can subdivide the colour into an infinite number and variety of shades. The virtue of a specific charm, too, attaches as much to the piano as to other instruments, though, perhaps, in a lesser degree of sensuousness than to some others. Is it because of this lesser sensuous charm that the art of the piano is considered the chastest of all instruments? I am rather inclined to think that it is, partly at least, due to this chastity that it "wears" best, that we can listen longer to a piano than to other instruments, and that this chastity may have had a reflex action upon the character of its unparagoned literature.

For this literature, though, we have to thank the pianists themselves, or, speaking more precisely, we are indebted to the circumstance that the piano is the only single instrument capable of conveying the complete entity of a composition. That melody, bass, harmony, figuration, polyphony, and the most intricate contrapuntal devices can—by skilful hands—be rendered simultaneously and (to all intents and purposes) completely on the piano has probably been the inducement which persuaded the great masters of music to choose it as their favourite instrument.

It may be mentioned at this point that the piano did not have the effect of impairing the orchestration of the great composers—as some musical wiseacres assert from time to time—for they have written just as fine works for a variety of other instruments, not to speak of their symphonies. Thus has, for instance, the most substantial part of the violin literature been contributed by piano-players (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruch, Saint-Saëns, Tschaikowski, and many others). As to the literature of the orchestra, it came almost exclusively from those masters whose only, or chiefest, medium of musical utterance was the piano. Highly organised natures, as they were, they liked to dress their thoughts, sometimes, in the colour splendour of the orchestra. Looking at the depth of their piano works, however, at their sterling merit, at their poetry, I feel that even a refined musical nature may find lifelong contentment in the piano—despite its limitations—if, as I said before, the artist keeps within its boundaries and commands its possibilities. For it is, after all, not so very little that the piano has to offer. It is both governed and manipulated by one and the same mind and person; its mechanism is so fine and yet so simple as to make its tone response quite as direct as that of any other stringed instrument; it admits of the thoroughly personal element of touch; it requires no auxiliary instruments (for even in the Concerto the orchestra is not a mere accompanist but an equal partner, as the name "Concerto" implies); its limitations are not as bad as those of some other instruments or of the voice; it outweighs these limitations very fairly by the vast wealth of its dynamic and touch varieties. Considering all these and many other points of merit, I think that a musician may be pretty well satisfied with being a pianist. His realm is in more than one respect smaller than that of the conductor, to be sure, but on the other hand the conductor loses many lovely moments of sweet intimacy which are granted to the pianist when, world-oblivious and alone with his instrument he can commune with his innermost and best self. Consecrated moments, these, which he would exchange with no musician of any other type and which wealth can neither buy nor power compel.

THE PIANO AND THE PLAYER

Music makers are, like the rest of mankind, not free from sin. On the whole, however, I think that the transgressions of pianists against the canons of art are less grave and less frequent than those of other music makers; perhaps, because they are—usually—better grounded as musicians than are singers and such players of other instruments as the public places on a par with the pianists I have in mind. But, while their sins may be less in number and gravity—let it be well understood that the pianists are no saints. Alas, no! It is rather strange, though, that their worst misdeeds are induced by that very virtue of the piano of requiring no auxiliary instruments, of being independent. If it were not so; if the pianist were compelled always to play in company with other musicians, these other players might at times differ with him as to conception, tempo, etc., and their views and wishes should have to be reckoned with, for the sake of both equilibrium and—sweet peace.

Left entirely to himself, however, as the pianist usually is in his performances, he sometimes yields to a tendency to move altogether too freely, to forget the deference due to the composition and its creator, and to allow his much-beloved "individuality" to glitter with a false and presumptuous brightness. Such a pianist does not only fail in his mission as an interpreter but he also misjudges the possibilities of the piano. He will, for instance, try to produce six forte-s when the piano has not more than three to give, all told, except at a sacrifice of its dignity and its specific charm.

The extremest contrasts, the greatest forte and the finest piano, are given factors determined by the individual piano, by the player's skill of touch, and by the acoustic properties of the hall. These given factors the pianist must bear in mind, as well as the limitations of the piano as to colour, if he means to keep clear of dilettanteism and charlatanry. A nice appreciation of the realm over which he rules, as to its boundaries and possibilities, must be the supreme endeavour of every sovereign—hence also of every sovereign musician.

Now, I hear it so often said of this and that pianist that "he plays with so much feeling" that I cannot help wondering if he does not, sometimes at least, play with "so much feeling" where it is not in the least called for and where "so much feeling" constitutes a decided trespass against the æsthetic boundaries of the composition. My apprehension is usually well founded, for the pianist that plays everything "with so much feeling" is an artist in name only, but in reality a sentimentalist, if not a vulgar sensationalist or a ranter upon the keyboard. What sane pianist would, for instance, attempt to play a cantilena with the same appealing sensuousness as the most mediocre 'cellist can do with the greatest ease? Yet many pianists attempt it; but since they are fully aware that they can never attain such ends by legitimate, artistic means, they make either the accompaniment or the rhythm, if not the phrasing, bear the brunt of their palpable dilettanteism. Of such illusory endeavours I cannot warn too strongly, for they are bound to destroy the organic relation of the melody to its auxiliaries and to change the musical "physiognomy" of a piece into a—"grimace:" This fault reveals that the pianist's spirit—of adventure—is too willing, but the flesh—of the fingers and their technic—too weak.

The artistic and the dilettantic manners of expression must be sharply differentiated. They differ, principally, as follows: the artist knows and feels how far the responsiveness of his instrument, at any particular part of his piece, will allow him to go without violating æsthetics, and without stepping outside of the nature of his instrument. He shapes his rendition of the piece accordingly and practises wise economy in the use of force and in the display of feeling. As to feeling, per se, it is the ripe product of a