Return Engagement

MINUET IN G -read one of the placards -GOEBBELS, GOERING, GIESEKING

The legend on another: GIESEKING

PLAYED WHILE JEWS BURNED!

Outside Carnegie Hall one night last week, 250 members of the Jewish War Veterans and 50 or so members of the Zionist youth organization Brit Trumpeldor paraded and protested the scheduled concert of Pianist Walter Gieseking. The demonstration bore a marked resemblance to the one of four years ago--which was part of the uproar that led to official questions about Gieseking's alleged Nazi sympathies, cancellation of the concert, Gieseking's decision to fly home to Germany rather than stay to face long, uncertain hearings (TIME, Feb. 7, 1949). But this time there were no official questions, no cancellation.

Uniformed police cleared the way for ticketholders, and plain-clothes men kept their eyes peeled, but by concert time the big hall had filled up quietly to its 2,700 capacity. With the hall's doors closed against sounds of street rumpus, burly, 57-year-old Walter Gieseking strode onstage. The crowd let out an encouraging whoop, clapped for half a minute. A few listeners rose to show their respect.

Gieseking took his seat at the piano. With his thick shoulders hunched motionless over the keyboard and his heavy head bent reflectively, he had an air of a man determined to prove his case quickly. When he began to play a Mozart sonata, its contours were practically flawless, but the playing was so rigidly controlled that the effect was almost oppressive. Beethoven's Sonata Op. 110 was more relaxed, but it was only when he came to the impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel--billowing up tinted clouds of tone and lacing them with bright spiderwebs of melody--that Gieseking seemed at full ease at last. Probably no pianist in the world could have bettered him in those numbers.

With the wisdom of long experience, he played only five relatively short works after the intermission, left plenty of time and played ten encores. Outside, the anti-Gieseking demonstrators drifted away long before the recital was over. Five days later, Pianist Gieseking flew back to Germany with more confidence than he had brought with him. Next season, he plans to sandwich a few more U.S. appearances into a heavy European schedule.

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