"WHAT Do You WANT ME To SAY?"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 329, 12 October 1945, Page 11

"WHAT Do You WANT ME To SAY?"

Interview With A Pianist From Palestine

CONCERT will be given in the Wellington Town Hall on Saturday, October 13, which will be rebroadcast by Station 2YA. It will be the first big orchestral concert since Ignaz Friedman was in Wellington two years ago, and once again there willbe a distinguished visiting artist -Pnina Salzman, the young Palestinian .pianist, who takes part by arrangement with J..and N. Tait. The NBS String Orchestra and 2YA Concert Orchestra, augmented with additional players, will be conducted by Andersen Tyrer, and Miss Salzman will play the Tchaikovski concerto in B Flat Minor. "The Listener" was told about the coming concert, and sent a staff reporter round to see Miss Salzman. This is what she told us. * * * } { ISS SALZMAN was resting on her bed when I called. Would I mind if she stayed there? . "Last night I had no sleep at all. I was at a party after the concert, and I had rationed food."

"Rationed food?" I asked, a little bewildered. "Russian food. To-day I am not well. But what do you want me to say? The audience is the same everywhere. The scenery is different, but the audience is the same. They are most warm and spontaneous. It was a nice public here." Miss Salzman answered my questions very briefly. She was so silent that I had difficulty in thinking what to ask her.

"The Palestine orchestra is the only one in the world where all the players are soloists. They were all picked by Huberman. They came from all over Europe. Polish, Russians, Hungarians, Germans. Now they all speak Hebrew." "Hebrew. is your language?" "Yes, My first language. I speak it with my mother." Miss Salzman did not look at me. While I tried to think of another opening, she gazed at the window, at the masts of ships, and the moving cranes. "Afterwards I go back to Australia; then to Palestine for a few months. Then to England, and then to America." I asked her what she had seen of New Zealand. She had seen Rotorua, but she made no comment. Somehow she got on to Wellington and its qualities. "I have no sleep with this terrific noise you make here with your wind. And then the receptions, and the handshaking and smiling, Oh!" Yes and No But no question I could think of would start Miss Salzman talking. She would wait until I put a question that needed only. a yes or a no, then give me yes or no. She was tired, and: ought to have been asleep. I took up her book of clippings. A very thick volume represented the Australian tour and the present tour of New Zealand. "Do you do all this pasting and clipping?" "It’s no work. Only one clipping every day or so." Miss Salzman has_ been _photographed in many poses. There was the one with the koalas (it is on this page). The one in Red Cross uniform with a hand at the salute. That was a comical one. There was another with a saucy look in the eyes and a cigarette held at» a rakish angle in the corner of the mouth.

Miss Salzman has also been spelled in a variety of ways. She has been-in the clipping books I sawNina, Phina, and even Pnina. She has been Saltsman, Salzmann, Saltzman, and even Salzman. I got her to write it herself, in our alphabet and in Hebrew, to be quite sure of avoiding errors. It is reproduced here. The Hebrew reads from right to left. "The Same in the End" There were more photos-in bathing suit; with the Duchess of Gloucester at a reception after a concert in Australia; with Dr. Malcolm Sargent conducting; a coloured one from the cover of an Australian paper. "I was never like that. They made me look so Spanish and romantic. And with such complexion — like a healthy butcher." Miss Salzman has a sallow complexion. Then I said, thinking I might start something: "Do you ever get tired of playing Tchaikovski in B Flat Minor?"

"Never." ,; I went on looking through clippings. "That’s the trouble with you travelling pianists," I said. "You get so much publicity that by the time The Listener gets hold of you there’s nothing new to be said." Miss Salzman nodded. a "And even if there was," she said, "you have to be polite, so it all comes out the same in the end, doesn’t it?" wi3Ps Wy? ase Ke tn