Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1930-10)

34 The Phonograph Monthly Review Arnold Bax ,Bax : Sonata for Two Pianos played by Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson. (On the 6th side Ethel Bartlett, solo, plays Bax’s Hardanger ). N. G. S. 158-60 (3 D12s.) Bax: String Quartet in C major, played by the Marie Wil- son Quartet 1 (Marie Wilson, Gwendolen Higham, Anne Wolfe, Phyllis Hasluck). N. G. S. 155-7 (3 D12s.) Arnold Bax belongs to the older generation of British composers, serious of intent, profound of knowledge. Among latter-day composers, who cultivate music as a sport, or a kind of abstract mathematics, he stands, draped in his roman- tic cloak, a magnificent, but lonely figure. Historically, he is a product of the great Russian school. Even his Celtic tunes sound like Mussorgski (the Rondo of the String Quar- tet in G, with a version in major of Mussorgski’s witching theme from the “Bald Mountain”). The two sets of records from Arnold Bax, coming to us through the courtesy—as the radio-phrase goes—of the Na- tional (i..e British) Gramophonic Society, present a Quartet in G, composed some ten years ago, and the new, fresh from the fire, Sonata for two Pianos. The Sonata covers five sides, which leaves room for a phonographic “encore,” viz. “Har- danger,” with the composer’s parenthetic acknowledgment to Grieg (Hardanger Fjord was Grieg’s favorite fishing place). The bipianistic Sonata is dedicated to Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, the recording players. It flows smoothly and pleasurably at their hands. The combined tone of the two instruments makes a fine blend, and the dedicacees’ tem- pi are spirited. Bax writes with gusto'for the paired pianos; the parts alternate, announcing a choral-like theme (not without benefit of the Russian. Church), then scattering in pearly passages in the treble. There are dramatic inter- ludes which, thanks to the gentleness of Miss Bartlett and Mr. Robertson, are never allowed to rise to tragedy. The heavy dancing notes, suggesting Fate, or at least trampling of monstrous feet,—in parallel fourths or fifths, as the case may be—provides the element of barbarity, indispensable since Stravinsky wrote his “Sacre:” (This latest Russian demon plays Dybbuk to the Bax of the Sonata; in Bax’s earl- ier works it is rather Scriabine who possesses him.) The Quartet in G major is played by an all-ladfie$ team (see names above). It is in G major, as advertised, and Bax’s digressions do not extend far beyond the tonal frame. The Celtic motives (via Mussorgski?) are skillfully treated, and harmonized without affection. There are pleas- ant upswellings, and corresponding recessions, which con- tribute to dynamic variety. The Lento is perhaps the most beautiful part of the Quartet, but there is enough substance in all the three movements to stimulate the players and the listener. The Marie Wilson String Quartet does fair justice to the work, and it would be ungallant to suggest that the individual ladies of the Quartet are less efficient in solo pas- sages than in their ensemble work. In his “Music of the Future,” W. J. Turner remarks that of all great men, only Beethoven could use such words as “noble feeling,” or “sublime spirit” without appearing ridicu- lous. Mutatis mutandis, Arnold Bax can do that too. And those of his contemporaries who are not entirely devoid of all feeling, noble or other, must in full fairness acknowledge the man’s sincere striving, and ultimately grant him an ad- umbrative greatness. The National Gramophonic Society gives clear and faith- ful reproduction of the piano as well as of the strings. It is entirely free from the Borborigmus Phonographicus (Dr. Goldberg’s term) which is still a common disease in some European recordings. But we are particularly grateful to the Society for bringing out fine and novel music of interest. Nicolas Slonimsky. The Phonophile's Bookshelf Brahms Johannes Brahms. By Richard Specht. Translated from the German by Eric Blom. New York, E. P. Dutton and Company. 372 pp. $6.00. Of biography making there is no end, but not every biogra- pher has the courage to state at the outset: “A literary occu- pation that busies itself with manufacturing a twenty-first out of twenty books has always seemed to me suspicious.” Specht’s work on Brahms is no pot-boiling re-hash of old bones from which every drop of flavor has long since been boiled. Familiar of course with the standard Brahms works by May, Niemann, and others, Specht has succeeded in his intention forgetting them as completely as possible, and of writing his own book in his own way. And he strikes a very genuine note. There is absorbing interest in and ad- miration of his subject that are kept in excellent balance to present a fully rounded image of the man and musician. Specht does not go in for the key-hole peeping of the psycho- analytical school, but he speaks frankly of many details of Brahms’ character and life that others have glossed over. The book is a big one, not merely in size, but in the grasp of its subject. It moves forward steadily and absorbingly; there are few biographies of musicians that are at once as stimulating and as informative as this. It cannot be read without the reader arriving at a new and expanded under- standing of Brahms the man and his music. Specht knew Brahms during the last years of his life and his chapters on the illness and death of the composer are profoundly sin- cere and moving (as are the earlier pages devoted to the breakdown and death of Schumann). “Brahms . . . disdained the gestures of the outrageous orig- inality of the outclassed, for he wished to be a whole mas- ter in every sense of the term. He scorned, too, the divine intoxications of the dionysiacal libertines as much as the humourless sobrieties of the mechanical and soulless, for he desired also to be a full man. . . . Here is one who suf- fered, but was blessed in suffering. His divided feelings he forged into unity in his music, his distressed conscience into the mystic parable of form, his wrestlings into the puri- fication of his work. ...” This is in truth the full man that Specht reveals to us, a realer, a nearer, and yet a greater Brahms than perhaps even the most vigorous admirers of his music have known. Mr. Blom, a British critic of very considerable individ- uality and skill, has attacked the difficult task of translation with courage and care. The book is well gotten up, attrac- tively illustrated, and generously indexed. No one who owns one of the major Brahms work in recorded form should fail to know this book also, for through it he may come to a far deeper knowledge and understanding of the music, and the vast force—heroically harnessed—that gave it its superb vitality. Dr. Aleman's Caricatures Karikaturus. By Dr. Ricardo M. Aleman. Havana, Cuba, “La" Prueba.” 134 pages. Price not stated. Dr. Aleman, if further introduction is needed to readers of the P. M. R., is a Cuban of almost astounding versatility, a lawyer by vocation, and a phonophile and caricaturist by avocation. The Phonograph Monthly Review has had the privilege on various occasions of printing Dr. Aleman’s notes on operatic recordings, comments that reveal quite ency- clonedic knowledge of old and new records, and operatic works and singers. A few years ago he issued a small book of caricatures, re- vealing a witty and uncannily probing insight into the characters of many musical and political celebrities. Now comes an extensive collection of his works in this form, many of which have appeared in the pages of musical and other journals. Dr. Aleman has evidently' pursued this avocation with the same intensity that characterizes his other activi- ties. and the development shown in his technique is very marked. There are many—not merely a few—of the carica- tures in this book that pass far* beyond the bounds of clev- erness, which is the most one usually asks of a caricature, in-