of sunlight and Weber out of
moonlight. There is nothing between him and them, as there is in
Beethoven, for instance, who hides himself in the depths of a cloud, in
the depths of wisdom, in the depths of the heart. And to Pachmann all
this is as strange as mortal firesides to a fairy. He wanders round it,
wondering at the great walls and bars that have been set about the
faint, escaping spirit of flame. There is nothing human in him, and as
music turns towards humanity it slips from between his hands. What he
seeks and finds in music is the inarticulate, ultimate thing in sound:
the music, in fact.

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 hear 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