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It has been complained that Pachmann's readings are not intellectual, that he does not interpret. It is true that he does not interpret between the brain and music, but he is able to disimprison sound, as no one has ever done with mortal hands, and the piano, when he touches it, becomes a joyous, disembodied thing, a voice and nothing more, but a voice which is music itself. To reduce music to terms of human intelligence or even of human emotion is to lower it from its own region, where it is Ariel. There is something in music, which we can apprehend only as sound, that comes to us out of heaven or hell, mocking the human agency that gives it speech, and taking flight beyond it. When Pachmann plays a Prelude of Chopin,**** all that Chopin was conscious of saying in it will, no doubt, be there; it is all there, if Godowsky plays it; every note, every shade of expression, every heightening and quickening, everything that the notes actually say. But under Pachmann's miraculous hands a miracle takes place; mystery comes about it like an atmosphere, an icy thrill traverses it, the terror and ecstasy of a beauty that is not in the world envelop it; we heard sounds that are awful and exquisite, crying outside time and space. Is it through Pachmann's nerves, or through ours, that this communion takes place? Is it technique, temperament, touch, that reveals to us what we have never dreamed was hidden in sounds? Could Pachmann himself explain to us his own magic?

He would tell us that he had practised the piano with more patience than others, that he had taken more trouble to acquire a certain touch which is really the only way to the secret of his instrument. He could tell you little more; but, if you saw his hands settle on the keys, and fly and poise there, as if they had nothing to do with the perturbed, listening face that smiles away from them, you would know how little he had told you. Now let us ask Godowsky, whom Pachmann himself sets above all other pianists, what he has to tell us about the way in which he plays.

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**** Pachmann recorded eight of the Preludes -
Op 28 Nos 3 & 6 English HMV c 1928: DA 927 [electric]
Op 28 No 6 two versions -
(1) English HMV, London 1925: [Methuen-Campbell: DA 1302?]
Matrix Bb 6258-1 [electric]
(2) English HMV, London c 1928: DA 1302 Matrix Bb 11 763-1 [electric]
Op 28 No 15 (Raindrop) three versions -
(1) Duo Art: 015 [piano roll]
(2) Victor, Camden New Jersey, December 14th 1923: UK single 0582 [acoustic]
(3) Victor, Camden New Jersey, May 26th 1924: US double 6480 [acoustic]
Op 28 No 16 two versions -
(1) Welte Mignon: 1212 [piano roll]
(2) Columbia, London, 1915: L 1010 [acoustic]
Op 28 No 20 Welte Mignon: 1213 [piano roll]
Op 28 Nos 22 & 23 G & T, c 1907: 05500 [acoustic]
Op 28 No 23 two versions -
(1) Victor, Camden New Jersey, November 7th 1911: US single 74284 [acoustic]
(2) Columbia, London, 1915: L 1014 [acoustic]
Op 28 Nos 23 & 24 Gramophone Company (pre-Dog), London, 1909: 05522 [acoustic; possibly unissued]
Op 28 No 24 Columbia, London, 1915: L 1009 [acoustic]

AO