CHAMBER MUSIC.
[Sidenote: =Dvoràk
Quintet in A Major.=
_February 2, 1897._]
Music for pianoforte, combined with two or more bow instruments, is
usually constituted on anything but democratic principles, the
percussion instrument standing to the others in very much the same
relation as Jupiter to his satellites. But the splendid quintet by
Dvoràk given last night forms an honourable exception to this principle,
the Bohemian composer's well-known preference for bow instruments having
apparently counteracted the usual tendency to make the pianoforte part
too prominent. Throughout the quintet there is an endless wealth and
fertility of beautiful ideas. The opening allegro is based on two main
elements which form an effective contrast, the one moving prevalently in
syncopated double time, and the other approaching the character of a
tarantelle. The pianoforte part is sometimes of independent interest,
and sometimes consists of beautiful accompanying passages constructed
from chords in extended position. The second movement bears the name
"Dumka," which, we believe, was first used as the name of a musical
movement by Dvoràk, or at any rate first became familiar to the world in
general through his works. It is derived from a Slavonic root meaning
"to think," and may be taken as something like the equivalent of
"meditation." There are several peculiarly interesting and charming
movements in the works of the Bohemian composer bearing this name, and
that which occurs in the quintet is one of the best. It is in the
relative minor of the opening key, and exhibits the composer as a poet
of the same sort as Burns--at once sturdy in bearing and delicate in
feeling. Here and there the pianoforte part conveys a suggestion of
Chopin; but the courtly sentiment of Chopin is soon merged in a broader
and more full-blooded vein of feeling. The thematic material is
remarkably varied and episodic, while the Scherzo--called, as in other
Bohemian compositions "Furiant"--is compact and free from any trace of
the rambling tendency. The finale is dominated by a dance theme in
double time of enormous energy and vivacity.
[Sidenote: =Dvoràk
Quartet, Op. 96.=
_December 6, 1900._]
The Op. 96 Quartet might almost as well be called "From the New World"
as the Symphony. Whether it was written during the composer's stay in
America we do not know, but it is certainly an outcome of his American
experiences no less than the "New World" symphony. All the themes of
both those works are idealised Negro or Red Indian melodies, and though
the results may not be in the Quartet quite so wonderfully felicitous as
in the Symphony, they are fine enough to make it a most interesting
feature in the music of the wonderful Bohemian composer's American
period. That music has taught some of us a rather important lesson. The
value of folk-melody has long been recognised, but until these works by
Dvoràk became known it was pretty generally thought that Negro tunes
formed an exception to the principle that all sincere, unsophisticated,
and original musical utterance has artistic value. Dvoràk has taught us
the danger of regarding any natural thing as common or unclean. He has
shown that Negro melody may give rise to beautiful works of art no less
than Irish, Hungarian, or Scandinavian melody. Dvoràk is the most
impossible to classify of all composers. He is naïf and yet a master of
complex and ingenious design; a scorner of scholastic device and at the
same time a successful worker in the classical forms; the most original
of the composers who became known during the latter half of the 19th
century, yet suspected, on occasion, of the most barefaced plagiarism.
It is hard to say whether his absolute musical invention, his skill,
taste, and resource in laying out for single stringed instruments, or
his ear for orchestral colouring is the most remarkable faculty. He is
the musician who seems to have learned but little from text-books and
professors, and yet, by a continual series of miracles, he avoids all
the pitfalls that beset the path of the unlearned composer. He is never
at a loss--never does anything feeble or ineffective,--but again and
again overwhelms and delights us with his inexhaustible flow of racy and
full-blooded melody and with his splendid handling of whatever
instrument, or group of instruments, he may choose to handle.
[Sidenote: =Beethoven
Razoumoffsky Quartet, No. 3.=
_December 5, 1901._]
The third Razoumoffsky Quartet stands among Beethoven's chamber
compositions very much as the C minor Symphony among his orchestral
works. To define the qualities in virtue of which these two cognate
works appeal so very strongly and directly to the imagination is a
matter of great difficulty. They belong to the same period; and, utterly
dissimilar as they are in form and detail, they are akin to one another
in spirit. Both reveal the composer during that short but golden prime
of his artistic life when he had done with technical experiments; and
when that austere indifference to mere sensuous beauty of sound, which
in course of time his deafness inevitably brought, had not yet begun.
Hence these works, though they fall far short of the exaltation,
intensity, and rugged grandeur of many third-manner compositions, are
more perfectly balanced. They are also entirely free from certain
perverse--one may almost say misanthropic--elements which are a
stumbling-block in much of Beethoven's music. Such is the felicity of
the invention that each new thematic element strikes the ear like a sort
of revelation. Nowhere is there an overlong development or anything that
bewilders or alienates. The Andante quasi Allegretto of the Quartet
reveals the composer in an extremely rare mood. The delicate romance of
it recalls the slow movement of the Schumann Quintet, however much more
profound Beethoven may be. The harmony is full of dreamlike beauty, and
here and there accents of extraordinarily eloquent appeal give that
impression (so frequent with Wagner) of music trembling on the verge of
articulate speech. A case in point is the recurring G flat in the viola
part in bars 8, 9, and 10 after the second repeat. The pizzicato bass is
another feature that irresistibly arrests attention. The unparalleled
delights of this enchanting work were brought home to the audience by a
performance which was not only masterly but was stamped by peculiar
felicity. Everything in the marvellous Allegretto was thrown into a kind
of delicate relief, and the fugal finale was given with the utmost
animation and perfection of detail.
[Sidenote: =Bach
Concerto in D Minor.=
_January 15, 1903._]
The association of Lady Hallé and Dr. Brodsky in Bach's Concerto for two
violins yesterday brought together by far the largest audience ever yet
seen at these concerts. The D minor, with two solo parts, is doubtless
the finest on the whole of Bach's violin Concertos. The Largo, cast in a
mould that the composer used more than once, obviously takes the first
place among movements of the kind, in virtue of stately magnificence
paired with a certain royal mildness and amiability of expression. Other
examples may be deeper or more poignant in feeling, but none other is so
richly and perfectly organised in structure or so sweetly benign in
expression. The two solo instruments are treated by the composer on a
footing of absolute equality, and the manner in which his intentions
were yesterday realised by the two masterly performers was above praise.
Why (one is likely to ask on hearing such a performance) did a composer,
who could make a couple of instruments sing so sweetly and graciously
and in a manner so perfectly adapted to their proper genius, very
frequently force the singing voice to follow a crabbed line,
instrumental rather than vocal in character? In the more vivacious
movements preceding and following the Largo nothing could have been
finer than the delicate interplay of the two well-matched solo parts,
and the whole composition lost little or nothing by the rendering of the
accompaniment on a pianoforte instead of the small orchestra for which
it was originally scored. As pianoforte accompanist Miss Olga Neruda
showed unfailing discretion, and so contributed not a little to the
exquisite impression produced by the whole work.
[Sidenote: =Beethoven
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 Ländler 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: =Tchaïkovsky
Quartet in D Major.=]
Tchaïkovsky'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 associates 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 Tchaïkovsky. It sounds like a dream of the shepherds who watched
their flocks by night and heard the angels sing, or an illustration of
some kindred theme in which a homely and pastoral note is associated
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: =Tchaïkovsky
Trio in A Minor.=
_February 26, 1903._]
Most astonishing are the comments that one hears and reads occasionally
on such "In Memoriam" pieces as Tchaïkovsky's noble 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 Tchaïkovsky'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. Analysing
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 Tchaïkovsky
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: =César 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 César 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 passages 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 César 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 passages of extreme nervous agitation
and culminates in a tumultuous _dénoûment_ 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. César Franck (1822-90) was a Liégeois 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 principal ornament.
Another follower, much less truly distinguished than d'Indy but better
known in this country, is Gabriel Fauré. 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 associates 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.