VIOLIN-PLAYING.
[Sidenote: =Ysaye.=
_November 8, 1900._]
Two complete Concerti, each in the orthodox three movements, exhibited
the distinguished Belgian master's style, first in strictly classical
then in more florid and more highly coloured modern music. Of concerti
by the great Bach for a single solo violin only two are extant. One, in
A minor, has been frequently played here in recent years by Dr. Joachim
and Mr. Brodsky. The other, in E major, is comparatively unfamiliar.
Perhaps the accompaniment, which in the original score is for strings
alone, has been considered rather meagre, and the extremely simple form
of the concluding Rondo may also have been regarded as unsatisfactory.
For Mr. Ysaye's performance of the E major Concerto the accompaniment
has been strengthened with an organ part written by Mr. Gevaert,
Principal of the Conservatoire de Musique in Brussels, and it can
scarcely be questioned that the work as he presents it is beautiful,
interesting, and highly satisfactory as a concert piece. The most
characteristic part is the middle movement, which, as in Bach's Sonata
for the same instrument and in the same key, is in Chaconne form, with a
bass theme that wanders freely through different keys, while the upper
strings play a descent and the solo instrument embroiders. A most
powerful and telling performance was given of this noble Adagio, the
accompaniment being assigned to a small group of orchestral players
together with the organ, and the soloist devoting all the resources of
his art to bringing out the delicate figuration of the upper voice with
ineffably sweet tone and subtle phrasing. The first movement is
remarkable for such wealth of thematic development as one scarcely
expects to find in a work composed so long before Beethoven's time, and
the finale brings the work to a close upon a note of simple and hearty
feeling. If strong contrast with the style of Bach was desired, the
Saint-Saëns concerto was well chosen for the second example of violin
music. Rich in colouring and surcharged with sensuous delights, the
modern Frenchman's composition passes along on its triumphant career,
like some fine lady, radiant in natural beauty and superbly attired,
witty, graceful, charming, and in every way effective--perhaps all the
more effective for being a little heartless. In the performance of this
music Mr. Ysaye was altogether in his glory. His astonishing warmth and
depth of tone lent fresh eloquence to such new phase of the solo part.
He made his instrument sing his Andantino theme with ravishing
sweetness, and his overwhelming technical power enabled him to revel in
the rushing and flying passages of the Mephistophelean finale.
Everything was magnificent, including even the harmonies in the Coda of
the slow movement, and the Concerto ended in a blaze of triumph. There
is only one fault to be found with Mr. Ysaye, namely, that he makes
everything sound modern.
[Sidenote: =Ysaye and Busoni.=
_February 6, 1902._]
If another and older master of the violin is commonly described--as it
were, _emeritus_--as greatest living violinist, it is unquestionably to
Mr. Ysaye that the title belongs in its full sense. Unparalleled warmth,
richness, and bouquet of tone, added to sovereign mastery of technique
and a marvellous temperament, full of fiery energy and yet apparently
incapable of exaggeration--such are the most obvious qualities of Mr.
Ysaye's art. He is not a genuine classic, like Joachim. Bach and
Beethoven he plays in virtue of infallible artistic _savoir vivre_; but
he is obviously in fuller sympathy with a Sonata or Concerto by
Saint-Saëns, a Suite by Vieuxtemps, or a Fantasia by Wiéniawski. Yet
that artistic _savoir vivre_ is so complete that it is nearly always
impossible to find specific fault with his renderings of the classics.
This was the case yesterday in the Bach Sonata, which headed the
programme. Each of the four movements declared the mastery of the string
player, no less than of the pianist, Mr. Busoni--real kindred spirits of
Bach and Beethoven. The Vieuxtemps Suite, too, was given with such
beauty of tone that the superficiality of the composition was entirely
disguised, the slow movement sounding almost as though Bach had written
it. In the concluding sonata--a late work by Saint-Saëns--it is
scarcely necessary to say that the violin-playing was perfect. Perhaps
some of the listeners remembered a performance by the same violinist of
Saint-Saëns's Third Concerto at a Hallé Concert not long ago. Again
yesterday we were treated to such playing as bewilders the senses and
seemed to place the transcendental cleverness of the French composer on
a level with the real imaginative power of greater men. Mr. Ysaye was
extremely well disposed--in fact, quite at his best--and was rapturously
applauded. As an extra piece he gave Beethoven's Romance in G, the
rendering being above criticism.
Utterly dissimilar as Messrs. Ysaye and Busoni are in temperament and
artistic character, they meet as master musicians, and the association
is in the highest degree interesting. The one is all sense and the other
all spirit, and one feels that only the immensely high accomplishment of
both makes the association possible. Mr. Busoni's solo was that most
capricious and austere Sonata, Beethoven's 109th work. It was all
incomparably well rendered, and the Variations in the last movement,
which ultimately spin themselves into a kind of Fantasia, were a
prodigious revelation of technical power. It is long since such a
pianoforte performance has been heard in this city--a performance
stamped by austere beauty and lofty ideality, and free from all earthly
elements. What other pianist at the present day, we venture to ask,
could give us such a thing?
[Sidenote: =Kubelik.=
_November 5, 1902._]
Popularity such as Mr. Jan Kubelik, the young Bohemian violinist, at
present enjoys makes it very difficult to criticise his performance. He
has not to meet the same conditions as other violinists. Thousands of
persons who care little or nothing for music attend his recitals merely
because he is a recognised society pet, and he commands a fee that makes
it impossible for orchestral societies to engage him. The restrictions
imposed by this state of things are obvious. He can only play with
pianoforte accompaniment, or with none at all; he is obliged to adhere
almost entirely to music that is light in style and of only secondary
artistic worth, and during a certain proportion of each recital he has
to give himself up entirely to sensationalism. Thus, after hearing him
play through three complete recital programmes, we do not feel qualified
to express more than a very fragmentary opinion upon his art. That he
has all the ordinary technique of the instrument at his fingers' ends is
a notorious fact. His tone is never remarkable for volume, but often for
sweetness. His truth of intonation in the midst of intricate
passage-work is remarkable, and gives the sense of hearing a rare kind
of satisfaction. His memory seems to be entirely trustworthy, and his
manner is free from affectation; but as to his musical conception, we
can only say that it is quite adequate to the interpretation of such a
charming piece of light, racy, and popular music as Grieg's third
Sonata. The one scrap of Bach that he played yesterday--the
unaccompanied Prelude in E major--was not specially well done, and how
he plays Beethoven, Mozart, or any of the great masters we do not know
at all. His most _recherchés_ effects of tone Mr. Kubelik seems to hold
in reserve for the encore pieces. In the allegretto movement of the
Grieg Sonata--a most tenderly homesick and lovesick little northern
Romance--he did not let his violin sing with all the sweetness of which
it is capable, as was afterwards shown in the arrangement of Schubert's
"Ave Maria" and in an unpublished Serenade by the performer's friend and
compatriot Drdla--both played as extra pieces at the end of the recital.
Virtuoso music, in the rendering of which Mr. Kubelik is well known to
be a great expert, was represented in yesterday's recital by the
following pieces:--Wieniawski's Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's
"Faust," Paganini's caprice "I Palpiti," Bazzini's "Ronde des Lutins,"
the last-named played among the encore pieces. We do not, as a rule,
care for the Fantasia on operatic airs, but Wieniawski's "Faust"
Fantasia is written with such wonderful ingenuity and musical skill that
it cannot be placed in the same category with the mere strings of tunes
with perfunctory accompaniments and connecting sections that such pieces
usually are. The Variation on the waltz theme, with the melody in
harmonics and the rushing accompaniment figure in the ordinary tone of
the instrument, is a marvel of successful audacity. It so happens, too,
that the rendering of this almost impossible Variation was the most
brilliant thing in yesterday's recital.
[Sidenote: =Kreisler.=
_November 6, 1902._]
We live in an age that seems likely to be known in the future as the
period of star violinists. It is curious to note how the musical world
illustrates the saying "It never rains but it pours." At one period we
have a long string of pianistic infant prodigies. Hoffmann, Hegner,
Hambourg--they come rapidly to the front, one after another, growing
ever younger and younger, and nearly always beginning with "h." Next we
break into the period of youthful violinists, beginning with "k."
Kubelik, Kocian, Kreisler come tumbling over each other's heel, each one
causing embarrassment to the critics for lack of any stronger terms of
commendation than were bestowed upon the last. It is true the string
players are not of such tender years as were the pianists on their first
appearance. The youngest of the violin prodigies was Bronislav
Hubermann, who not many years ago shook his elf-locks at the
Philharmonic Society of Vienna and more nearly succeeded in turning the
heads of that august, formidable, and severely critical body than might
have been thought possible. For the present we are mainly concerned with
Mr. Kreisler, who is not so desperately youthful, but is a mature and
military-looking man, though he is commonly reckoned among the players
of the new school, or the rising generation. His programme yesterday was
open to some of the same objections as Mr. Kubelik's on Tuesday evening.
It included nothing from the major prophets of music, the most important
piece being Tartini's "Trillo del Diavolo" Sonata--no doubt one of the
best examples of that school which grew up in Italy soon after the
perfecting of the violin at the end of the seventeenth century. In a
well-contrasted style was the only other piece in more than one movement
that he played, namely, Vieuxtemps' second Concerto. In the rendering of
these pieces one noted a peculiarly incisive manner of giving full value
to all the detail of the figuration, and also a singing tone of rich and
strangely penetrating quality. Mr. Kreisler's style is in sharp contrast
with Mr. Kubelik's. Instead of caressing the instrument and coaxing the
tone out of it, he wrestles with it and plucks out the heart of its
mystery. Nor does he seem to care for the sputtering Paganinities so
dear to the heart of Mr. Kubelik. His pieces in the second part of the
programme were a rather Mozartian Larghetto from a Sonata by Nardini (an
eighteenth-century Italian); a "Tambourin" by Leclair (an
eighteenth-century Frenchman), much modernised in the arrangement; a
bagatelle called "L'Abeille," by Franz Schubert of Dresden--not, of
course, the famous Schubert, but a violinist who died some twenty-five
years ago; an arrangement by Marcello Rossi of the "Song without Words"
in F, by Tchaïkovsky; and, finally, the Allegretto grazioso from the
same Nardini Sonata, played as an encore piece. "L'Abeille"--a clever
show-piece in perpetual motion triplets, played with a mute on the
bridge--was encored and repeated.