"FOR ME THERE IS NO WAR" - IGNAZ FRIEDMANN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 70, 25 October 1940, Page 12

"FOR ME THERE IS NO WAR" - IGNAZ FRIEDMANN

But Famous Visiting Pianist Confesses That He Is A Rich Man Without Any Money

4 OR me there is no war." Friedmann caressed the keys of the piano on which he was to play for 2YA last week. He was telling a representative of The Listener what he had been doing since last he visited New Zealand-13 years ago. "Playing the piano," was his answer to the question. "Just playing the piano." Now the bombs are dropping in his Europe and he is still playing the piano. When this story of an interview with the great pianist appears in print he will have been heard over the air and listeners will know how grateful they should be that the musician who is Friedmann can still say: "For me there is no war." Actually, for the man who is Friedmann there is a war. "I am one of those people," he said, "who are rich without any money. Much rather would I be poor with some money. But there it: 40/7 Eight years ago, when he was fifty, he had planned to retire. But wars came, and Hitlers and Mussolinis came, and Ignaz Friedmann is a rich man without any money. "So I am still playing the piano." His Favourites Friedmann is as gracious, as tolerant, as wise, as sincere and as pleasant ‘as the music he loves-the music of the romantic and classical periods: Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin. If a man with such wide interests and such free understanding can have favourites, those are Friedmann’s favourites. "I know them and I believe what they say. I can play them." Ravel and Scriabin he will also play during his hastily arranged tour of New Zealand. "They have new techniques," he said, "but they are saying the same things as those others. Oh yes, I can play them too.’ There are others whose works he will nat play, although he is not an intolerant lover of his classics. He studies the modern composers. "To all music," he says, "there is a key. Like the vaults of a bank, music cannot be opened *without that key. Perhaps in two hours, perhaps in two days, or two weeks, or five years, if you study the work you will find the key." He has looked for the key in modern composing, and he told The Listener that he could usually find it. But he would make no use of it, "I

have the key, yes; but I do not believe what they are saying. I cannot play it." He talked of. the effect of time, and environment, and events on music. "Your young musicians in Australia and New Zealand could play this new music better than I. I can ride in an aeroplane" (he crossed the Tasman by air) "but I still do not understand why the aeroplane. does not go down. Your young men can point to a car and say that is a Chevrolet, or that is a Mercedes. But not I. They are born into it. It is that way with music." Nothing New Since 1914 Although he recognises his period and allows in this way for what is new, Friedmann says he does not think there has been anything new said in music since 1914. "What they are saying now they could say in the language of the old ones. You have more than 700,000 words in your English language now. This is another example. And yet I think that what you say with all those new words could be said_as well with Shakespeare’s vocabulary of 20,000. I read your Huxley. I have to take a vocabulary, and with so many words I must turn the pages to see what is meant. I believe he could have said it all with the words Shakespeare used. With music it is the same." Europe Is Too Old No optimist is Friedmann when he talks of his Europe: ; "Europe is too old, and you are too young; that is what is good and what is bad in these times. In Europe we have a history of 2,500 years. Not one year that there has not been a war Those years Europe has to remember. It is good to talk of "The United States of Europe.’ It sounds very sweet. But I do not think it will work. There is tco much building up of national and super-national hates and _ jealousies. Europe is too old. Here you have not enough history. What is it? One hundred, one hundred fifty years? You are beginning. At present you are too young." He was making a plea that the young countries, free of the immediate fear

of war, should absorb while they could all the artistic talent which war was pushing out of Europe. "Let them burn all the universities in Europe to-mor-row," he said. "It would not matter, There they have their history and tradition. When the time came they could replace all their learning. But here it is different. You are young, you must make you beginnings." "What You Must Do" Much progress in music he said he had noticed when he returned south of the Equator at the invitation of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, But he felt that now more than ever Australia and New Zealand should snap at the opportunity to bring in new musicians from the old countries of music. "When Mr. Friedmann comes to New Zealand," said Mr. Friedmann, "it is only like a wind that blows and dies down. When Mr. Beecham goes to Australia, it is the same. They can do much, but they can go no farther than the musicians they find where they are. What you need is the professional musician who does not play the flute as a hobby after a day’s plumbing. That is no good. They have. good orchestras in Melbourne and Sydney. Yet still you will find at night when the musicians come to play a symphony, that for them it is a hobby, like horse racing, or cricket, or jumping. Through the day they have not touched their instruments. They can look at the music and see the notes which must be played on the black keys or the white, but there is no more than that. The best musicians in the world are at your disposal now. You must get them-the horn players, the oboe players, the strings and stringbass players, the flute players, all of them-and you must have them play in your orchestras, and you must have them teach. There are tricks and things to know about music which you could learn from them." "Political" Music With sadness Friedmann has seen the exodus of music from what had been the musical capitals of the world. "Now (Continued on next page)

"FOR ME, THERE IS NO WAR" (Continued from previous page) it is not music at all, It is political music. The orchestra is like the army, it is part of the state, and must do as it is obliged to do. Before war came to Poland last year (his native country), he had been playing through all the countries in which Hitler is now. He toured Holland, Scandinavia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, France, Spain, and Portugal. He did not stay in Germany ofr Austria, but when he travelled through the other countries he could see that music was no more as he had known it. In Vienna, the capital of music, the orchestras had become like provincial orchestras. "Many years it has taken to build up these things. Very quickly they have been broken down. It is like too-old Gorgonzola cheese. It goes like that-" he spread his arms to indicate disintegration. "It is gone." Pessimistic as he obviously was about the future of Europe, Friedmann just as obviously was hopeful for the artistic future of the free countries. "Where is fteedom now?" he asked. "Only in the

American republics, in Australia, and New Zealand." We were beginning, he concluded, and we must strengthen our beginnings by accepting as much as we could of the talent which the old world was discarding. FRIEDMANN’S ITINERARY LAST WEEK: Friedmann played from 2YA on October 15 and 18. THIS WEEK: He will give a public performance on Thursday, October 24 (this will be relayed by 2YA) and a studio performance on Sunday, October 27. NEXT WEEE: He will give a public performance in Christchurch on October 30 (this will be relayed by 3YA), and he will play in 3YA Studio on November 1. IN DUNEDIN: He will play in public on November 7 and in 4YA Studio on November 10. On November 17, he will be back at 2YA for a studio recital and will give a public performance in Wellington on November 19. IN AUCKLAND: He will give studio recitals from 1YA on. November 20 and 22 and a public performance on December 3.