PILOTING GREAT ARTISTS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5362, 10 December 1928, Page 1

PILOTING GREAT ARTISTS

WHAT THE PUBLIC DO NOT SEE.

Lionel Powell, the impresario, who has just celebrated his fiftieth year of concert management, has staged in all during ’his career more than .15,000 concerts. Ti celebrate the anniversary of his firm’s foundation he has organised a jubilee series of concerts in London and the principal twons in the British Isles for: the coining winter, at which famous artists will appear in turn. They will include Paderewski, Chaliapin, Kreisler, McCormack, Florence Austral, Amadio, Cortot, Thibaud and Casals, and the “Don Cossacks. “Concert management is like being a travel bureau, a Foreign l Office diplomat and a railway station master all in one,” ‘he remarked. “First someone breaks the Alieps Restriction Act and is threatened with cancelled permit; then music is found to have gome astray, or. there is a visa for Chile to be got in the space of an hojur. “I have carried music to the uttermost parts of the earth. There was that never-to-be-forgo>tten occasion when I was touring Kubelik in northwest Canada. "We were travelling to Edmonton from. Calgary in the Rockies, and I went along to have my usual game of chess with Kubelik, servant has the c.hess-board,’ he told me. I searched the train for the servant; there was no servant. I asked for the luggagje; there was no luggage; In the luggage wiere Kubelik’s violins. It had all been left behind. I telegraphed from the next station to the servant to fojllow with the violins and the luggage, but the reply came that there was no other train to reach Edmonton in time for the concert. I telegraphed back: ‘Engage a special train.’ The train was hired for, £2OO but even that c,ould nc;t arrive in time.

“At Edmonton the hall was crowded with, people, some of whom had travvelled .50 miles—but there was ho Viojlin, I searched the town and then, after, a long time, bought an old German fiddle for 15&, in a pawnshop, and a bow with a dozen greasy hairs hanging op it. Kubelik had no evening dress. His accompanist had no music. Still, we did the; concert.

“I explained to the audience and asked those who .wished Kubelik todo his best to put up tlheir hands. The whole audience up. Kubelik was at his best and gave a magnificent performance, while I stobd at the back of the stage, fearing the worst. Sopeone in the audience later bought the violin fcjr, £5O. “When I was bringing Dame Clara Butt back from Australia four, or five years ago, we found, on reaching Vancouver, that there was no hall in which she could sing. Sb we had to take a theatre for six midnight performances. ’When the play went out the concert audience came in. It ’had never been tried' before; early morning tr.am-cars were arranged! to take the audience home, and special ferryb'dats were run at 3 in the morning to Victoria. Night was turned into day, and it was an enormous success.” One of Mr. Powell’s mqst amusing experiences concerns Caruso, whom he tried to teach an English song/ They sat at the piano, and the great singer kept on reciting the English words one after, another. “His accent was terrible,” said. MT Powell, “but We thought we Would try it. The great event happened at . a concert a few days later. “Alas, Caruso mixed up all the words—those that he could remember —and I stood behind the> screen, roaring with laughter, and Wondering What on earth the audience wouldldoj Caruso was such an idol, however, that it was all a great success I “One night, in New York, where •Melba was giving a concert, the hall was sold out, over £lO,OOO worth qf seats (having been bought. When the time lor the performance arrived, there' were snow-drifts so thick in the street that neither Melba nor the audience could reach the hall.

“One# when Pac'hmanp wis returning home after a concert in Chicago, he passed Paderewski Km the stairs of the hotel,” said 'Mr Powell. “Pachmann’s concert had been a failure, and Paderewski had drawn almost a record house.

‘ “Ah, you take the money, ” ’ said Pachmann to his fellow artist, “ ‘but I play the piano.’ ” Mr Powell arranged command performances for royalty in many lands. His hope now is that sqop he will find some new British singers. “Bring me a British artist Who is really clever,’’ he concluded, “and I will not only finance the debut in London, and the big centres of this country, but I will run: a tour rqund the world.”