As
in a stereoscope, the outlines were defined with a degree of clearness
and sharpness that almost hurt the eye; as in a stereoscope, there was
neither colour nor suggestiveness. An orchestral virtuoso, like a
piano or violin virtuoso, may over-practise.
Having delivered this verdict with all solemnity, I must straightway
proceed to hedge. If Lamoureux had not the qualities which give
Richter and Mottl their pre-eminence, he had qualities which they do
not possess, and his playing had qualities which one cannot find in
theirs. If he had not absolutely a genius for music, he certainly had
a genius for attaining perfection in all he did, which was perhaps the
next best thing. I imagine that he would have made a mouse-trap or
built a cathedral exactly as he played a Beethoven symphony. The mouse
would never escape from the trap; there would be nothing wanting, down
to the most modern appliances and conveniences, in the cathedral. In
the Fifth symphony he gave us every minute nuance in rigid obedience
to the composer's directions or evident intentions, and gave them with
a fastidious care strangely in contrast with Mottl's rough-and-ready
brilliancy or Richter's breadth. He began every crescendo on the
precise note where Beethoven marked it to begin; and he gradated it
with geometrical faultlessness to the exact note where Beethoven
marked it to cease.
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