Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 5 (1929-02)

February, 1929 The Phonograph Monthly Review 159 Personally I have never considered either the “Blue Danube” or the “Invitation to the Dance” as belonging in the category of “light” music. Both require what is in effect an orchestra of symphonic character to properly perform them, for both, when all is said and done, are in reality tone-poems of a beauty so exquisite that they have, from the moment of their first public performances, occupied a “place apart,” not merely among lovers of the sensuous, but critics of the most exacting standards. Did not Wagner himself inscribe the fan of the wife of the composer with a bar from the “Blue Danube” and the regretful words, “Not, unfortunately, by Richard Wagner”? Either of these pieces always seems to me to have been in- tended as the incarnation of the line of Byron, “Music arose with its voluptuous swell,” and leading on to that other, “Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake again,” which figure in the prelude to his “Battle of Waterloo.” I have the Stokowski “Danube” but after trying out the “In- vitation” I turned it' back because it gave me scant pleasure. And as a matter of fact, none of the various discs I have of either composition seems to me entirely adequate as an in- terpretation. There is only one valid excuse for what one may term li- bertinism in the performance of such scores as these. That is the exigencies of actual terpsichorean art. Doubtless some of the readers of the Review recall the performances of the Diaghileff troupe of Russian dancers, some years ago, when they visited America. Among others of their most successful offering was a pas-de-deux, danced by Adolf Bolm and Lydia Loupokhova, called “Spectre de la Rose,” for which the musi- cal setting was the “Invitation to the Dance.” Diaghileff’s orchestra was led by Ernest Ansermet, a veritable magician with the baton, who evoked atmospheres and colors that I have never since—nor had before—heard equaled. I remain still unable to understand why, amid the furore which has been displayed in this country of late over novelties in for- eign conductors, no attempt has been made to import An- sermet, one of the few leaders of absolute genius that have wielded the baton in recent years. The excitment he created among musicians was immense and many persons attended the performances not more to see the ballets than to hear his interpretations. Their uniqueness was recognized by the Col- umbia Company when it recorded a series of discs made under his direction, but not, I believe, by the same band he had trained for the ballet performances. These discs were deci- dedly imperfect in some ways, being not only made acousti- cally, but in a day when the Columbia Company had not as yet succeeded in subduing a certain scratchiness of surface sometimes obtrusive. However, I have in my albums the entire set and “money cannot buy them,” as they have long been “out of print.” Among them are selections from “Scheh- erazade,’ “Snegouroutchka,” the “Carnival” of Schumann, the “Pavilion d’Armide” and a bouquet of numbers used in the ballet “Chopiniana.” When I last heard of Ernest Ansermet, a year or so ago, he was conducting in Geneva, Switzerland, and I live in hope of some day eventually hearing him again in this country. I have seen repeated references in the Review to the fact that the finale of the Fifth symphony of Tchaikovski, recently issued by Victor from discs made by the Chicago Orchestra, led by Frederick Stock, was weak and ineffectual. One criti- cism was that Mr. Stock is incapable of building up such a climax as is there required. This, in my opinion, is quite er- roneous idea, in one respect at least. No leader of the pre- sent day can build up a climax of that description more im- pressively than Stock, as I can testify from many hearings in the concert hall. And the real reason why the finale of the Victor set under discussion is weak is one which has not been mentioned and, in the interests of truth, may as well be. The day upon which this set of discs was made the orchestra and Mr. Stock worked no less than eleven hours, continu- ously, stopping only for a little hurried refreshment, in order to record this symphony and another not yet released. 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