Carnegie Hall (November 4, 1913)

Carreño gave a solo performance. She performed the following works: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903 (Bach, Johann Sebastian), Piano Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp Minor, op. 27, no. 2 (Moonlight) (Beethoven, Ludwig van), Nocturne in B Major, op. 9, no. 3, Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp Minor, op. 66, Waltz in A-flat Major, op. 42, Ballade in G Minor, op. 23 (Chopin, Fryderyk), Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, op. 24 (Brahms, Johannes), Impromptu in G-flat Major, D. 899, no. 3 (Schubert, Franz), Zwei Fantasiestücke: Hexentanz, op. 17, no. 2 (MacDowell, Edward), Marche militaire in D Major, D. 733, no. 1 (Schubert-Tausig).

This concert was managed by the Wolfsohn Bureau. The concert began at 2:30 pm. Carreño performed on an Everett Piano.

Advertisement: New York Times, 29 October 1913, 20.

Advertisement: The Evening World, 1 November 1913, 7.

Announcement: New York Times, 2 November 1913, 8.

Review: New York Times, 5 November 1913, 13.

Review: The Sun, 5 November 1913, 7.

Concert Program: US-NYcha

Kijas, Anna

New York Times, November 5, 1913: 13.

Mme. Carreno's Recital. Unfamiliar Qualities of Her Piano Playing in Carnegie Hall.

There are few pianists who are better known in New York than Mme. Teresa Carreño, or who have oftener played here. Her return to this country after several seasons' absence was signalized last week at the first of the Philharmonic Society's concerts, when she appeared for the first time playing Tschaikowsky's B flat minor concerto. Yesterday afternoon she gave her first recital in Carnegie Hall, where a large audience heard her.

Mme. Carreño's playing on this occasion was curiously at variance with the style and manner of her musicianship, that are impressed on the memories of her older admirers. She has been a kindling flame, an aggressive and intense musical personality, the exponent of a muscular and fiery temperament. She has been referred to as an Amazon, at times, and at other times as a Valkyrior.

The recent performance with the orchestra had many of her old-time qualities. Few of them were recognizable in this recital. She seemed strangely subdued, interspective, caressing the piano, seldom smiting it, or even obtaining from it its full volume of tone. There was little dash or brilliancy in her playing, little compelling power; there were grace and charm. But sometimes the scale of her performance seemed too small for the place and the surroundings, and hardly carried through. Mme. Carreño's tone seemed now and again to lack breadth, roundness and carrying power, as well as beauty and variety of color.

She was at her best in the Chromatic Fantaisie and Fugue by Bach, with which she began, and in which there were breadth, romantic feeling, and something of the imposing grandeur and broad sweep of the composition, though even here its scale was not drawn large. The figure, begun at a broad tempo, was gradually accelerated, whereby it lost something in repose. Her performance of Beethoven's sonata in C sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2, seemed to tend toward grace and amiability rather than deep feeling in the first movement and passion in the last.

Her programme further contained a group of pieces by Chopin, Brahms's variations and Fugue on a theme by Handel, and shorter compositions by Schubert and MacDowell. Her Chopin could hardly be called an exposition of ther "greater Chopin," especially the "Fantaisie Impromptu," op. 66, which needs a more vibrant passion; the Nocturne in B, op. 9, was played in an agreeable manner; but where were the scintillation and the rhythmic tonalization of the A flat waltz? Mme. Carreño's listeners were loyal and friendly in their greeting and it was evident that while they may have missed some of the familiar qualities that have in previous years made her playing individual and distinctive, they found much in her playing to give pleasure and artistic enjoyment.