MADAME ARABELLA GODDARD.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 150, 26 November 1874, Page 3

MADAME ARABELLA GODDARD.

As this eminent artiste will give her first performance in Christchurch on Tuesday next, the following notice of her farewell concert in London, abridged from the London Times, will be found interesting : “ Madame Arabella Goddard’s farewell concert, given last night in St James’s Hall, was one of extraordinary interest. No name for the last twenty years has been more familiar to musical amateurs than that of the lady who has now bid adieu to them for ever. What it might have been hardly necessary to say while she was contantly appearing before them may on such an occasion be stated without reserve. Proficient in every school, Madame Goddard is excelled in none. Her general culture indeed, is almost without precedent. Not only has she, in the course of her long and distinguished career, mastered all the important works of the greatest acknowledged composers—from Bach and Handel to Mozart, from Mozart to Beethoven, Hummel, Moscheles, Weber, Mendelssohn, and Sterndale Bennett —but she also acquiinted herself, and through her performances acquainted the musical public with those of men (like Woelfl, Dussek, Steibelt, &c., who, though comparatively sidera minora, were, nevertheless, giants in their day. Further than this, leaving what is teamed ‘ classic’ out of the question, there is, now that their author is dead, no one who can perform the fantasias, &c, of Sigismond Thalberg with the same fluency, grace, and irreproachable mechanism as Madame Goddard. The renowned virtuoso himself imparted to her the secret of how to play them, and his instructions were the more easily taken advantage of on account of her early studies in Paris under Kalkbrenner, who, as a methodical teacher for young aspirants, never had a rival, and who often boasted, with a pride, that he had made two pianists. Marie Pleyel and Arabella Goddard —une Pleyel cn herbe, as he was wont to say. “ But what is of most interest now that Madame Goddard has resolved to give up public playing is her artistic career in England. This, however, need not be described in detail. From her first achievements, at the concert of the Quartet Association (conducted by M. Sainton), when she played from memory, the long, elaborate, and, to nineteen pianists out of twenty, almost impracticable sonata of Beethoven in B flat, Op. 10(1. to her most recent exhibitions in public, she has only to look hack to an uninterrupted series of triumphs. At the Philharmonic Societies — old ’ and ‘ new,’at the Birmingham Festivals, at the Crystal Palace Concerts, and last, not least, at the Monday Popular Concerts, she has been a recognised 1 star of the first magnitude. And justly so, seeing that as an English artist she has, like a veritable champion, maintained the honour of musical England, holding her own against allcomers. Even when a girl, of scarcely twenty, she made a tour in Germany, she was the first who ever attempted the great sonata of Beethoven, already mentioned, her performance of which was recorded in a long and elaborate article by the celebrated critic Rellstab, one of Beethoven’s friends. To cite merely a paragraph or two, Herr Rellstab says ; —‘ Only those who, by careful study, have obtained an insight into the difficult and complicated nature of this work, are fully capable of appreciating the extraordinary and masterly performance of Miss Arabella Goddard. One thing is certain—-it is a most stupendous task for the pianist ; and the young and highly gifted lady has the the threefold merit of having played it first in Germany, of being a lady who did so, and of having accomplished her task with a fluency and perfection in which it is doubtful if any man ever equalled, much less surpassed her.’ This eulogy, addressed to an English pianist by one of the most experienced and uncompromising of German critics, is at least worth quoting. That Madame Goddard is the most popular artist in this country who has ever had to trust to fingers, rather than to voice, for popularity is unquestionable ; and the fact is the more gratifying to reflect upon because her popularity has been used so largely for good to the art of which she is in her line the most distinguished existing representative. “ That yesterday evening’s concert —the ■Farewell’ of so universal a favorite — should have excited an unusual degres of public interest is not surprising. Never was St. lames’s Hall crowded by a more enthusiastic audience, and never was a concert more thoroughly enjoyed.”