We went last night to the Philharmonic and sat in the shilling orchestra,
just behind the drums, so that we could see and hear what each instrument
was doing. The concert began with Mozart’s G Minor Symphony. We liked
this fairly well, especially the last movement, but we found all the
movements too long and, speaking for myself, if I had a tame orchestra
for which I might write programmes, I should probably put it down once or
twice again, not from any spontaneous wish to hear more of it but as a
matter of duty that I might judge it with fuller comprehension—still, if
each movement had been half as long I should probably have felt cordially
enough towards it, except of course in so far as that the spirit of the
music is alien to that of the early Italian school with which alone I am
in genuine sympathy and of which Handel is the climax.
Then came a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven and an air with
a good deal of “Che farò” in it. I do not mind this, and if it had been
“Che farò” absolutely I should, I daresay, have liked it better. I never
want to hear it again and my orchestra should never play it.
Beethoven’s Concerto for violin and orchestra (op. 61) which followed was
longer and more tedious still. I have not a single good word for it. If
the subject of the last movement was the tune of one of Arthur Robert’s
comic songs, or of any music-hall song, it would do very nicely and I
daresay we should often hum it. I do not mean at the opening of the
movement but about half way through, where the character is just that of
a common music-hall song and, so far, good.
Part II opened with a suite in F Major for orchestra (op. 39) by
Moszkowski. This was much more clear and, in every way, interesting than
the Beethoven; every now and then there were passages that were pleasing,
not to say more. Jones liked it better than I did; still, one could not
feel that any of the movements were the mere drivelling show stuff of
which the concerto had been full. But it, like everything else done at
these concerts, is too long, cut down one-half it would have been all
right and we should have liked to hear it twice. As it was, all we could
say was that it was much better than we had expected. I did not like the
look of the young man who wrote it and who also conducted. He had long
yellowish hair and kept tossing his head to fling it back on to his
shoulders, instead of keeping it short as Jones and I keep ours.
Then came Schubert’s “Erl König,” which, I daresay, is very fine but with
which I have absolutely nothing in common.
And finally there was a tiresome characteristic overture by Berlioz,
which, if Jones could by any possibility have written anything so dreary,
I should certainly have begged him not to publish.
The general impression left upon me by the concert is that all the
movements were too long, and that, no matter how clever the development
may be, it spoils even the most pleasing and interesting subject if there
is too much of it. Handel knew when to stop and, when he meant stopping,
he stopped much as a horse stops, with little, if any, peroration. Who
can doubt that he kept his movements short because he knew that the worst
music within a reasonable compass is better than the best which is made
tiresome by being spun out unduly? I only know one concerted piece of
Handel’s which I think too long, I mean the overture to _Saul_, but I
have no doubt that if I were to try to cut it down I should find some
excellent reason that had made Handel decide on keeping it as it is.