There is a story of Liszt that, when asked what he meant to pour-tray in one of his rhapsodies, he replied laconically i played it all through agai might be said that the only possible description of Mischa Elman's playing is to hear him play. For there is a hypnotic quality in it which wraps one round as in a dream and one awakes with no words to express one's thoughts, but only a sense of unimagined splendour and fairylands and soft, intangible, never satisfied nor satisfying mystery. When he opened with the Allegro of the Vivaldi some people may have experienc-oda slight sense of disappointment. Tt was exquisite playing. But one had heard that same music played exquisitely by others also-But with the slow movement the gates of his kingdom were opened and as the evening advanced one penetrated ever deeper into it. The Andante of the Lalo brought us fairly into that magic abode; and in the Ave Maria of Schubert, with its throbbing introduction_on the G string and its unsurpassable octaves, and the Chopin Nocturne with its unearthly sordini, in which each note seemed to hold a triple thread, Mischa Elman showed us such realms as it is seldom given one to see.
We Rave picked out the slow and comparatively easy pieces for specia] mention as everybody would have done last night, because that is the music in which Mischa; Elman seems to stand alone. Not that he does not play the difficult bravura work with inimitable charm ~such as the last movement of the Lalo, when one could almost have danced about the hall; and the Faust Fantasia, which his genius redeemed from its usually rather commonplace garishness. But in these slow expressive pieces Mischa Elman attains a quite. unearthly beauty and is himself so wholly capt that one imagines him caught up a little above the boards like the old saints at their prayers. He commands a wonderful singing tore such as one never heard before he plucks the bow from the string and Jeaves it ringing like a bell; he allows the sound to die away almost to nothingness, yet Keeps the atmosphere throbbing with melody. And over and above all this there is the quality which defies analysis but which is common to every great work of art, a Gothic cathedral, a poem, a landscape by Turner or a statue of Praxiteles.
He was extraordinarily well accompanied: in fact it was not accompaniment, hardly even duet, but seemingly a double manifestation of the same genius. Whether Mr. Arthur Loesser is a great) pianist part from Mischa Elman we do not know, but he was great last night, and both in perfection of timing and sympathy of expression no finer combination could be desired. We were given two encores, one charming muted piece that we did not know and Walther's
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