Musical Criticisms Part 10

B Flat Major Quartet.=]

In Beethoven's B flat major Quartet--the last of the third volume--the intricate lines of the composition were brought out with admirable unanimity of purpose, perfection of _ensemble_ never once being lost amid the utmost fire and freedom of the execution in the rapid parts.

The Quartet, which occupies quite forty-five minutes in performance, is remarkable for an opening movement in which adagio and allegro sections alternate with wayward frequency, for the curious fourth movement in a sort of Landler rhythm, and for the Cavatina in E flat preceding the Finale. It is capricious and multifarious, but has neither the abstruseness nor the occasional violence of the later Beethoven as revealed in the last Quartets and Sonatas.

[Sidenote: =Tchakovsky

Quartet in D Major.=]

Tchakovsky's first Quartet is chiefly remembered in connection with the Andante, which makes a peculiar appeal to the imagination. Though the thematic basis is evidently derived from folk-music, and the tones of the muted instruments are such as one a.s.sociates with "soft Lydian airs"

that merely play upon the senses without further significance, there is in this movement a strange mystical exaltation that is not often met with in Tchakovsky. It sounds like a dream of the shepherds who watched their flocks by night and heard the angels sing, or an ill.u.s.tration of some kindred theme in which a homely and pastoral note is a.s.sociated with devout and joyous feeling. It is the movement that so greatly moved Count Tolstoy when, in company with the composer, he heard a performance of it, also led by Dr. Brodsky. The rest of this beautiful and zestful work causes one to wonder how the composer was able so early in his career to make stringed instruments speak with such free, ready, and natural eloquence.

[Sidenote: =Tchakovsky

Trio in A Minor.=

_February 26, 1903._]

Most astonishing are the comments that one hears and reads occasionally on such "In Memoriam" pieces as Tchakovsky's n.o.ble Trio, written in honour of Nicolas Rubinstein--brother of the more famous Anton and a pianist of nearly equal eminence. The psychological basis of this Trio is of exceptional clearness; it is probably clearer than in any other composition of similar extension. Yesterday, Mr. Siloti played the pianoforte part at these concerts for the second if not for the third time. Frequenters have therefore enjoyed unusually good opportunities of becoming acquainted with the music, which we regard as on the whole the best example of Tchakovsky's chamber composition. As in Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasie," the centre of the whole is the theme of the second movement--a beautiful and expressive strain that, in the composer's imagination, evidently symbolised the personality of his lost friend.

The ensuing Variations--which include a waltz, a mazurka, and others that are anything but sombre in character--range back over scenes and memories connected with that personality, the composer now giving himself up to lively characterisation, and now thrown back into an elegiac mood by the returning consciousness of the friend's death.

Occasionally the two moods are mingled, as in that part of the waltz where the dainty dalliance of the pianoforte part is accompanied by the tragic variant of the central theme in the strings. The opening movement, "pezzo elegiaco," is dominated by that tragic variant which, at the very outset, is given out with mighty eloquence by the richest tones of the 'cello--a wailing complaint that recurs in many different forms and informs all three movements in one way or another. a.n.a.lysing the composition, therefore, not with reference to musical technicalities, but psychologically, we find it to consist of three main elements:--(1) The composer's affection for his friend and grief at his loss; (2) biographical reminiscences and reflections thereon; (3) the funeral panegyric. To some extent these elements are intermingled throughout the work; but they dominate the respective movements as here numbered, so that, broadly speaking, one may call the first movement "lament," the second "recollections," the third "eulogy." In all important respects the Trio strikes us as thoroughly original, though in a few superficial matters the composer seems to take hints from certain predecessors. Probably the "Wanderer Fantasie" influenced the general design to some extent; the opening of the Finale suggests the corresponding part of Schumann's "Etudes Symphoniques" by its rhythm and atmosphere, and the short "funeral march" section at the end contains an obvious reference to Chopin. One can scarcely hear a better rendering than Mr. Siloti's of the pianoforte part, which is throughout of paramount importance. Like Dr. Brodsky, Mr. Siloti was an intimate friend of the composer, and as he is also an acknowledged master of pianoforte technique and a highly accomplished musician, his Tchakovsky interpretations have a certain authority. Moreover, no living instrumentalist can charm a melody into life in a more suave and natural manner, and the lines of a composition always fall into their proper place in his renderings. Dr. Brodsky, always at his best in the music of his famous compatriot and friend, gave a most eloquent rendering of the violin part, and he was well matched by Mr. Fuchs, who, as before, brought out the superb opening theme with amazing warmth and breadth of style, and gave all the rest of his part in a manner worthy of that fine entry.

[Sidenote: =Cesar Franck

Quintet in F Minor.=

_December 12, 1903._]

The Quintet, for pianoforte and strings in F minor and major, is a typical example of the composer's profound learning and immense technical mastery, of his lofty ideal as a musical artist, and of his quite marvellous originality. Judging by such a composition, one would hardly claim the gift of melodic charm for Cesar Franck. He has little or no lyrism, and he seems to be chiefly interested in delivering music from the bondage of the tonic and dominant system, while calling upon each instrument for what is most characteristic in its technical resource. He is thus as far removed as possible from Grieg and the song-and-dance men of recent time. He is a great master of form, but he dramatises the chamber-music forms very much as Beethoven dramatised the symphony, reconciling the claims of structure and emotion with the touch of unmistakable genius. The great Quintet is written for performers whose technique is subject to no limitations. Each part is intensely alive, and at many points the listener's imagination is carried into regions never before opened up. The music proves that the composer understood his medium with extraordinary thoroughness. Some of his audacious progressions, his persistent reduplications, and his rushing unison pa.s.sages one might, at first blush, call orchestral, yet more careful observation quickly convinces one that they are not orchestral, but that the special kind of eloquence in the music belongs essentially to the particular combination for which it was written. The key system is disconcerting at first. The composer seems to insist that two chords so unlike tonic and dominant as F major and D flat minor (if anyone thinks there is no such key he cannot have studied Cesar Franck) will do just as well for the main props of an extended composition; and he has all the best of the argument. The technical interest of the work is of the keenest from beginning to end; but the poetic interest seems to develop slowly, the imaginative play being nowhere as definite as in the finale, which begins with strong pa.s.sages of extreme nervous agitation and culminates in a tumultuous _denoment_ with strong reiterated insistence on the two chords aforementioned, above which the strings rush towards their point of repose in a unison of unparalleled energy and breadth. The subtle and heavy emotion of the slow movement reminds one of Maeterlinck. Cesar Franck (1822-90) was a Liegeois who migrated to Paris, where he became the founder of the young French school--that school of which Mr. Vincent d'Indy is now the princ.i.p.al ornament.

Another follower, much less truly distinguished than d'Indy but better known in this country, is Gabriel Faure. Franck is the only great composer that Belgium has produced in modern times. The task of interpreting the wonderful Quintet was one of the most formidable that Dr. Brodsky and his a.s.sociates ever took in hand. But they were equal to the occasion. With such a past master as Mr. Busoni at the pianoforte there could be no uncertainty as to the interpretation, and the immensely difficult string parts were rendered with that repose and sureness of touch which alone can make a great and complex composition intelligible.

CHAPTER X.

PIANO-PLAYING.

[Sidenote: =Reisenauer.=

_February 13, 1896._]

The reception of Mr. Alfred Reisenauer by the large audience in the Gentleman's Hall yesterday afternoon was marked by considerable reserve.

Not once during the recital was there any display of enthusiasm. Yet it cannot be said that the performance fell short of Mr. Reisenauer's great reputation. In his rendering of Schumann's "Carnaval" not a point was missed, and the "Paganini" intermezzo, occurring in the middle of the slow waltz, gave a foretaste of the quite extraordinary technical powers which were more fully displayed later on. The "Davidsbundler" finale was played with less noise and more subtlety than is usually bestowed upon this curious march, with the Grossvaterstanz creeping in un.o.bserved, much as the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" creeps into the "Faschingschw.a.n.k in Wien" by the same composer. In certain numbers the pianist showed a tendency to prefer pieces of a secondary and almost trivial character such as the "Rondo a Capriccio" to which Beethoven has given the whimsical sub-t.i.tle "Rage over the lost penny stormed out in a Caprice." Not that this work is altogether frivolous. As in almost all Beethoven's music, the working-out sections contain much that is beautiful and interesting; but the opening theme is quite as bald as the _motif_ of Haydn's "Surprise"

symphony. In the first part of the programme--that is, down to the end of the Beethoven selections--there were comparatively few indications of the pianist's true calibre. But in Liszt's transcription of the "Forelle" Mr. Reisenauer began to reveal some of those marvels of which he and perhaps one other living pianist have the monopoly. That interminable trill, with the song _motif_ freely and expressively played by the same hand first below the trill and then above it, was a thing to be remembered. There was not the least trace of those licences which even first-rate players commonly allow themselves in order to facilitate such manoeuvres. To the ear the effect was absolutely that of three independent hands. The "Erlkonig" transcription, on the other hand, was much less impressive. It was performed with an exaggerated _tempo rubato_, and was altogether too noisy. Of the Chopin Nocturne in D flat as rendered yesterday afternoon it is difficult to speak in measured terms. Mr. Reisenauer seems to be pretty generally put down by amateurs as wanting in "soul." But if so, it must surely be admitted that he gets on extraordinarily well without one. Anyhow, soul or no soul, his rendering of the Nocturne was a revelation. In the midst of an almost nebulous pianissimo the parts were still differentiated with perfect mastery, and altogether a science of tone-gradations was displayed that is probably unique. Not a lurking beauty in the composition escapes his research or exceeds his powers of interpretation. For the concluding number Liszt's "Hungarian Fantasia" was chosen, and this piece again fell totally flat on the greater part of the audience, possibly owing to want of familiarity with the Hungarian style. For this Fantasia is based on Hungarian popular songs, and decorated with pa.s.sages that are a sort of glorified imitation of an Hungarian improvisatore's performance on the "cembalo." The song-themes are some of the most beautiful and interesting to be found in all Liszt's Rhapsodies and Fantasias, especially the first, which, in Korbay's edition, is set to the words "They have laid down him dead upon the black-draped bier," and the wonderful "Crane" song, which colours all the latter part of the Fantasia. The difficulties of the piece are some of the most heart-breaking to be found anywhere in the literature of the instrument.

[Sidenote: =Moszkowski.=

_November 18, 1898._]

To those who already knew Mr. Moszkowski as a composer it must have been interesting yesterday to make his acquaintance as a pianist. His playing is the exact counterpart of his composing. It is brilliant, ingenious, elegant. It shows a knowledge of pianoforte technique so consummate that the listener is apt to be completely dazzled and to forget that our old friend the pianoforte is capable of other kinds of eloquence besides the eloquence of technical display. At the same time, it is not at all our intention to speak slightingly of Mr. Moszkowski's technical display.

Though not the highest thing in music, technique is a very important thing, and, when carried to such a pitch of excellence, has a kind of self-sufficient beauty that may be compared to the l.u.s.tre of pearls and diamonds. Perhaps it does not mean anything; but it is beautiful, cheering, enlivening. It raises the spirits somewhat like champagne, but better than champagne, and it has all the arrogance and costly unreason that are so fascinating in fine jewellery, in common with which it seems to convey a kind of magnificent protest against matter-of-fact and gloom. The wonderful charm of Mr. Moszkowski's composing and playing depends, further, on the fact that he attempts nothing but what he can do to perfection. He knows well enough that there was a Beethoven and a Brahms, for whom music was the expression of profound poetic ideas. But such ideas are not his affair. He leaves them frankly alone, in the well-founded confidence that almost anything in the way of an idea will serve his most entertaining purposes. The Concerto played yesterday is a perfectly characteristic work. Completely devoid of originality as to material, it is nevertheless put together with an unfailing sense of style, and everything is so adorned and so laid out for the solo instrument that there is not a dull moment from beginning to end. If only as a compendium of all the most telling musical effects that are absolutely peculiar to the pianoforte, the Concerto is likely to be remembered. The two Mazurkas that were played in the second part of the concert were interesting examples of that form which apparently no composers but those of Slavonic descent can handle successfully. It may be hoped that anyone who listened to them attentively will have grasped the rudimentary point that there is nothing in common between that clumsy dance of Western Europe called the Polka Mazurka and the elaborate figure dance the music of which has been so wonderfully idealised in the Mazurkas of Chopin, Tchakovsky, Wieniawski, Moszkowski, and Scharwenka.

[Sidenote: =Busoni.=

_December 23, 1898._]

Of the four princ.i.p.al pianoforte styles--the Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt styles--Mr. Busoni has shown himself a past-master. It has been said that these four are the only genuine pianoforte styles. But if there is a fifth having typical originality distinct from all others, it is the Brahms style, and in that style Mr. Busoni was heard for the first time yesterday evening. His interpretation of Brahms's first Concerto was no less masterly than his Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt renderings. The work is one of exceptional importance. Written when the composer was only twenty-five years of age, and almost entirely unknown, and proving, when first produced at Leipsic, with the composer himself as soloist, a dead failure, it nevertheless was, like Carlyle's "French Revolution," the first work showing the author to be a genuine and original man of genius. It shows him deliberately rejecting all that was traditionally connected with the idea of a work in "concert style,"

affording to the soloist none of the conventional opportunities for display, demanding from him the mastery of an enormously difficult technique, full of double-note pa.s.sages, full of heavy and exhausting reduplications; demanding also exceptional tact, intelligence, and presence of mind such as are only to be found in a few players of the very first rank. The music of the first movement is of profoundly sinister and tragic import, portraying the rage, grief, and unrest in some struggle of the heroic soul. It has nothing entertaining and nothing to propitiate superficial taste. No wonder it was a failure at Leipsic in 1859, when that centre of enlightenment was given up to the Mendelssohn cult! After the composer himself, the first pianist to take up the Concerto was Hans von Bulow, who with a performance at a Philharmonic Concert in Berlin won early recognition of its surpa.s.sing merit. Other performers who contributed towards the success of the work with the world in general were Madame Schumann and Mr. D'Albert. At the present time it may be doubted whether there is any better exponent of it than Mr. Busoni. What a German writer has called the "heaven-storming" first motive was delivered in a manner that showed perfect grasp of its poetic import, and the tragic eloquence of the ensuing development was never marred either by any sort of technical fault or by inappropriate expression. The "Benedictus" forming the slow movement is fraught with that profound religious feeling the musical expression of which has been accomplished only by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. It was no less perfectly rendered than the opening movement, and the concluding Rondo was played with appropriate breadth, energy, and mastery of heavy and intricate pa.s.sages. Afterwards another work for the same instrumental combination was played, namely, Liszt's "Spanish Rhapsody," which Mr. Busoni has treated very much as Liszt himself treated the "Wanderer Fantasie" of Schubert, making an arrangement on the concerto principle, with a part for pianoforte and orchestral accompaniments. The Rhapsody is put together on the same principle as the Hungarian Rhapsodies, having majestic motives in the first part, and afterwards dance themes with variations and ornamentations in the transcendental manner peculiar to Liszt. Mr. Busoni's orchestration is all very clever and telling, and in playing the solo part, which is brilliant beyond all description, he, as it were, came down from the pedestal of seriousness and showed that he also can, on occasion, be simply entertaining. As an extra piece without orchestra, Mr. Busoni played Liszt's "Campanella"--probably the most catchy and difficult concert study in existence. The almost incredible brilliancy with which it was performed seemed to leave the audience half dazed and wholly captivated.

[Sidenote: =Busoni.=

_November 25, 1904._]

The concert was remarkable for one of Mr. Busoni's meteoric appearances, the special function of which, in the order of nature, seems to be to throw critics into a state of utter confusion and bewilderment. He has been more frantically praised and more severely blamed than any other pianist of the present day, and he never fails to justify both praise and blame. He is the modern Sphinx among executive musicians, just as Strauss is among composers. Nothing is certain but his matchless technical power and the uncanny force of his own individuality that, without misconception or inadequate conception, still does violence to every composer, by a sort of inner necessity. Every accusation except that of dulness or feebleness has been brought against Mr. Busoni, and with justice. Yet he can well afford to smile at his critics; for the fury of one is as eloquent a testimony as the rapture of another to his prodigious faculty of stimulation. Most of the fault-finding is a covert expression of rage at the writer's hopeless inability to estimate so prodigious a talent or to guess what it will "do next." Henselt's Concerto, hackneyed in Germany but almost unknown in England, was his accompanied piece yesterday. It is the most considerable work of that curious composer, who made a great reputation as a pianist though he scarcely ever played in public, and some reputation as a composer though he never did anything more original than the pianoforte Etude "Si oiseau j'etais," and for the most part rested satisfied with giving enfeebled reproductions of Chopin's ideas thinly disguised by arpeggio accompaniments in extended harmonies and ornamental pa.s.sages in double notes. In a few points, such as the use of _martellato_ octaves and chord pa.s.sages, he had a more modern technique than Chopin's; but there is no justification for his compositions except good laying out for the instrument. From beginning to end one finds him cultivating the same kind of mild and voluminous euphony. Mr. Busoni played the three movements in his customary style, solving all the technical problems that they present rather more intelligently than anyone else. His unaccompanied solos were, first, two astonishingly ingenious Preludes constructed on themes of chorales by Bach, which are treated as _canti fermi_, and accompanied by pa.s.sages in florid counterpoint, having the character of an _obbligato_. The theme of the first was "Sleepers, wake," and of the second the chorale known in this country as "Luther's Hymn." The third piece was Liszt's seldom-heard transcription of Beethoven's "Adelaide."

[Sidenote: =Borwick.=

_February 10, 1899._]

Among all kinds of solo playing it is pianoforte playing, the high standard of which is specially characteristic of our age. The violin was perfected in the seventeenth century, and, though the technique of the violin has been further developed in comparatively recent times by Paganini and others, there has not been during the nineteenth century any other advance in a particular kind of musical performance at all comparable with the advance in pianoforte playing, which, apart from improvements in the construction of the instrument, is generally attributed to the genius of Liszt. It is sometimes forgotten that Liszt did not stand quite alone. He was the most brilliant pupil of a certain school, namely the Czerny school. But Czerny, though probably the greatest of all pianoforte pedagogues, does not stand quite alone as the father of modern playing. There was another great pedagogue with an independent system, namely Friederick Wieck, whose most brilliant pupil was his daughter Madame Schumann. The modern art of pianoforte playing may be traced back to one or other of those two remarkable teachers, Czerny and Wieck. The most famous representative of the Czerny-Liszt school at the present day is Mr. Paderewski, and the most famous representative of the other--the Wieck-Schumann school is Mr. Borwick. For a long time it was supposed that no member of the English-speaking races was capable of taking rank among first-rate solo-players, and it is therefore cheering to find Mr. Borwick--a true-born Britisher--holding the position that he now holds. For his first piece Mr. Borwick chose, appropriately enough, the Schumann Concerto for pianoforte, which Rubinstein considered a no less happy inspiration than Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. It is the most important of all Schumann's works for pianoforte, and Mr. Borwick, as a pupil of the Schumann school is, of course, completely in his element when playing it. Yesterday he seemed thoroughly well-disposed, and he played the whole work with admirable purity of style and insight into its delicate ingenuities and romantic beauties. On his second appearance Mr.

Borwick played a Ballade by Grieg in the form of fifteen variations on a Norwegian air. The air is plaintive and pretty, and in the harmonization is strongly stamped with the composer's individuality. Some of the variations, too, contain examples of graceful movement, but there is not much more to be said for them. They are not for a moment to be compared with the typical modern works in variation form, such as Mendelssohn's "Variations Serieuses," Schumann's "Etudes Symphoniques," or the variations on a chorale of Haydn by Brahms. The one really fine work of considerable scope for pianoforte by Grieg is the Concerto. All that was possible, however, to be made of the Ballade was made of it by Mr.

Borwick.

[Sidenote: =Siloti.=

_March 9, 1900._]

Of Svendsen, the contemporary Scandinavian whose name stood first on yesterday's programme, we know very little. Until yesterday we had heard nothing of his but the familiar Romance for violin. The first hearing of his Moorish "Legend" for orchestra left an impression of sweetness and picturesque charm, but also of a talent scarcely equal to the conception and laying out of extended orchestral works. As painters sometimes say, the interest of the picture was literary rather than artistic. It was nice to read the pretty story in the programme to the accompaniment of the pretty music going on in the orchestra. But whether the music by its own eloquence could have roused the desire to know what was the imaginative or narrative basis of the design in tones is doubtful.

Except for a short section at the end, containing some slight suggestions of development, the composition is almost entirely arabesque work, which is perhaps an appropriate arrangement, the subject being Moorish. The amazing double power that Liszt possessed of translating from orchestra to pianoforte and from pianoforte to orchestra was certainly never matched in any other mortal. Both processes he performed with consummate ability. Mr. Siloti rendered the solo part with the restraint and the mature mastery of his resources that are characteristic of him. He tears no pa.s.sion to tatters; he does not play "in Ercles' vein"; the tricks of the "Oktavenbandiger" delight him not; nor does he tickle and paw the notes in the velvety-ineffable style. Mr.

Siloti is so considerate as not to obliterate the composer in any way.

There is a certain largeness and gentleness in his manner. His technical power is unlimited, but he uses no more of it than is necessary to bring out the composition, and with regard to tone-gradations, pedalling, and the entire management of the pianoforte--as medium of musical expression, not of acrobatic display--one may say that "what there is to know, he knows it." Among distinguished pianists of the day there is perhaps none other whose style is so good a model for learners. Many other pianists have great powers, but nearly every other has some frightful fault, whereas Mr. Siloti has no serious fault. He is simple, equable, gentlemanly, masterly. He seeks not to dazzle, to bewilder, to impose, to appal, to petrify--but simply to convince. He _brings out the music_ written by the composer, and that is what a pianist should do.

The group of Russian pieces played by Mr. Siloti on his second appearance we thought, on the whole, very charming, especially the Caprice by Arensky. The concluding piece by Rubinstein was not quite so interesting, but it gave the performer his opportunity of treating the audience to that "rampage" which is considered the only proper conclusion to a group of pianoforte solos; and it had, at any rate, the advantage of not being hackneyed.

[Sidenote: =Rosenthal.=

_November 23, 1900._]

An exceedingly remarkable performance of Schumann's Pianoforte Concerto was given by Mr. Rosenthal and the orchestra. In no other performance that we remember was the balance between orchestra and solo part so well preserved. Mr. Rosenthal played with his usual perfection of technical mastery; his phrasing was beautifully intelligent, and the distinction of his style was to be noted no less in the homely sweetness and graceful fancy of the Intermezzo than in the rich and complex Allegro.