GERHARD WILLNER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 538, 14 October 1949, Page 5

GERHARD WILLNER

Sir,-Please accept my thanks for your courtesy in permitting me a final word concerning the above artist’s performances of Mozart’s piano sonatas. I haye read with much interest the letter from P. L. Darke on the same subject in your issue of September 23, and would like to state here that, with one small exception, I am in perfect agreement with everything he says about Gerhard Willner as a Mozart interpreter. It is a long time since I exatnined the unedited Kalmus edition of the master’s sonatas, referred to by Mr. Darke; but, as far as I remember, several of the later sonatas are completely bare of expression marks-‘"surely an indication," says Mr. Darke, very convincingly, "of Mozart’s growing tendency to allow greater freedom to the performer." Unfortunately in his final sentence, Mr. Dafke contradicts this shrewd inference when he writes: ". . . At no time is the work marred by an intrusion of the performer’s individuality." Freedom of interpretation surely connotes individualism in the matter of ex-

pression. Let me here quote some passages from the late Sir Henry Wood’s My Life of Music. "The let-us-have-it-as-written doctrine (as preached by a certain set) is, in my view, wrong. ‘We can never afford to do without the interpretative artist. ...» The last thing I want is a standardised method of interpretation, I want individual interpretations, I have not forgotten the’ last words that most inspired of all conductors, Arthur Nikisch, ever spoke to me-‘Make all your performarices a grand improvisation!’ " ° Sir Henry was, as usual, quite right. If there were no "intrusion of the performer’s individuality," according to Mr. Darke, every performance of a musical composition would, sound exactly alike. Whereas, as things happily are, no two pianists of any standing play a Mozart Sonata in the same way-thus offering the grateful listener a wide range of preference. * _If I may venture upon a personal note, it is probably true to assert that my experience of world-renowned piano virtuosi (as of singers and other great artists) is unparalleled in this country, ‘as before coming to New Zealand I did not miss any important musical event in London, over a period of 15 years. On a subsequent two-year visit to England I attended 217 concerts, the majority being piano recitals. As a result of this long apprenticeship I can honestly affirm | that Gerhard Willner may be bracketed with the few really great Mozart interpreters I have heard-viz., Raoul Pugno, Artur Schnabel an@ Aleksandr Helmann.

L. D.

AUSTIN

(Wellington).

(This correspondence is now closed.-Ed.)