He Was Young Himself Once

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 376, 6 September 1946, Page 12

He Was Young Himself Once

a licence has been unexpectedly refused for him to appear in public unless the net proceeds of the concert are handed over to a charity. Miss Mathilde Verne begs to announce that the proceeds of this concert will be given to the Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street.The Mathilde Verne Pianoforte School, 194 Cromwell Road, S.W.2 (Mathilde Verne was his first teacher). "We may not be great logicians, but it seems to us that the real question was simply ‘this-whether the boy would or would not suffer in health by undertaking the programme that had been arranged for him. He was allowed, however, only on condition that the proceeds were handed over to a charity. How does that affect the matter at

all: Either the boy should | have been allowed to ap- | pear, or his appearance should have been prohibited. And if he was permitted to appear, who else should benefit by his appearance, than the party who had _ the trouble of organising the concert? "Why a charity? Again it would not be convincing to argue thus: Boys of eight should not appear in public: Solomon is a boy of eight: therefore Solomon should not appear in_ public. Solomon is an_ extraordinary boy of eight, and in considering the matter of granting a licence-it was only for performance during a single afternoon — that fact should have received special consideration. ... We can quite believe ‘that Master Solomon was frisking about the day after the concert just as if he had been through no ordeal at all the day before. .... "The boy’s playing was very remark-

able indeed, especially in Mozart’s Concerto in B Flat for piano and orchestra. It was impossible to believe that the boy pianist was merely imitative. For the effects he made cannot, we believe, be acquired by imitation alone. It was a very natural and very beautiful performance. We preferred it to what Pugno can do with Mozart! .... Apart from the distinguished quality — the meaning-of his performances, it was an amazing thing that a boy of eight was able to memorise a complete concerto. .. ." When it came to Solomon’s second concert, the Musical Standard critic, this time M. Montagu-Nathan, was intrigued (continued on next page)

(continued from. previous page) by his name as well as his virtuosity. He said: "Master Solomon Dash, or Master Dash Solomon-how am I to know which?--gave a’ recital at Queen’s Hall, Sir Henry J. Wood and three-score valiant men about him. The audience might well be excused for jumping to the conclusion that the boy is a prodigy. What is really so amazing is that so few children are able to show anything like a musical proficiency commensurate with the teaching now obtainable in return for quite a reasonable outlay. "Ability-to play as well as Solomon before arriving at the ‘teens of age is éither the result of good teaching and a careful exploitation of the remarkable imitative faculty in the very young, or else it signifies that the power of musical interpretation is not the exclusive privilege of the mature, but is, on the contrary, at its zenith in the nonage. "The latter I beg leave to doubt, and if the former is the correct solution of the mystery, there is no excuse for the practice. of inviting the public to hear a teacher’s second-hand rendering of the masterpieces of musical’ literature, especially if the teacher be alive and well. Solomon played Beethoven’s C) Minor Concerto as if he really enjoyed it, and I am bound to confess that I see no reason why his career should suffer from such public appearances, provided they remain sufficiently infrequent to allow of adequate general study. "If some of the many youngsters who heard Solomon are infected with a desire to adopt the career of musician in preference to that of engine-driver, who knows but that by such means we may yet arrive at being a really musical nation?"