Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 5 (1931-02)

160 The Phonograph Monthly Review with their gracefully-turned melodies and accents of the nocturnes and waltzes falsify the impressions built up so vividly. One commentator finds the trio of the funeral march depicting sweet memories of the past blending with hopes of immortality or the everlasting peace of Nirvana. . . . Surely such a Nirvana as only a sickly and spoiled child of the salons could envisage! But the admirers of the work will be grateful for the or- thodoxy and‘impeccable virtuosity of Rachmaninoff’s per- formance, and the giant Russian’s public should thank Victor for again giving adequate discographic exposition of his dig- nified and fully matured powers. The gracious posthumous waltz in E minor, on the odd record side, is a happy example of his less formalized and more piquant way with lighter fare. R. D. D. Mozart Quintet Mozart: Quintet in G Minor. (K. 516)), played by the Lener String Quartet and L. D’Oliviera, Viola. Columbia Master- works Set 150 (4 Dl2’s, Alb., $6.00). These records, as they richly deserve, have been much praised in the few weeks since their release. Their recording is up to the very high standard of the recent Columbia Masterworks, and Compton Mackenzie in the Gramophone chooses them as the best records of chamber music issued in 1930 in England. The Lener Quartet, in this case ably supplemented by L. D’Oliviera, gives a splendid reading of Mozart’s quintet. The Gramophone's reviewer suggests that the one fault of the per- formance is that it lacks the “severity—almost harshness” that he wants. Perhaps, but surely the atmosphere of the work is not that of “fighting aloud,” to use Emily Dickinson’s phrase, but rather that of the vague but none the less real conflicts most intensely felt in moments of inactivity, when “struggle” in the physical sense is farthest to seek. If so, the Leners are right. They do not oversentimentalize or over-romanticize the music. Their skill and the excellence of the recording combine to give a fit reproduction for one of Mozart’s greatest achieve- ments. Several hearings of this quintet should be forced upon everyone who thinks of its composer as an artist merely in the “lighter” vein, a creator of lovely things which lack the richness and profundity of certain other masters. To make this quintet a part of one’s musical experience is to understand why Debussy, for example, found in Mozart Beethoven and some thing more, to understand why lovers of Mozart have felt in him not only surface but depth, emotion as well as form, philosophy (if a bad term may be forgiven) as well as sheer beauty of sound. Edward Holmes said long ago that this work shows “the variety of powers that Mozart brought to composi- tion; the great organist and contrapuntist—the profound mas- tery of harmony and rhythm are there—but taste and imagin- ation ever preside.” The quintet is in four movements—an allegro on the first two record sides; a minuet, on the third; adagio ma non troppo on the fourth and fifth; and a last movement, beginning with an adagio and breaking into an allegro, on the last three. The whole is tied together into organic unity by skilful manipula- tion of groups of notes capable of various developments and by echoing of themes, but elaborate technical analysis of all Your knowledge of contemporary music is incomplete unless you are a reader of THE CHESTERIAN “Infinite riches in a little room” is the apt quotation from Christopher Mar- lowe used by a subscriber to express his opinion of the magazine. To the modern musician THE CHESTER- IAN does indeed represent “infinite riches” by reason of its unique features. Every issue is a veritable mine of interesting in- formation. Eight numbers are published each year and will be forwarded, as issued, for the nominal subscription of FIVE SHILLINGS. A specimen number will be sent, post free, on application. J. & W. CHESTER, Ltd. !l Great Marlborough Street London W. I. England this adds little to the enjoyment of the listener, since, what- ever the devices employed, the effect of unity is clear at once. The use of two violas emphasizes the tone of the work—the veiled, half mysterious quality of the extra instrument accord- ing exactly with the mood of most of the composition. The opening suggests at once that the quintet has been playing somewhere throughout eternity, that it has not “begun” but that the hearer has just become aware of it. The themes try, rather timidly and wistfully than violently, for full ut- terance, and though the rhythm goes gaily enough the violins and violas seem far from gay as they sigh through bits of the theme. Pauses heighten the effect. Back of the beauty of the phrases is always the feeling of a restless search, sometimes trembling wearily on the edge of despair, sometimes seeming to find a sort of imperfect consolation in making sheer love- liness of expression the sole end. The minuet, as far as possible in its effect from the conventional rather squarely cut minuet of Haydn or Mozart himself, is as regular in form as the most usual example of its type—an opening section repeated, a second section also repeated, a trio in two parts, each repeated, and then a final playing of the two first sections. According to Hermann Abert the minuet with “its zigzagging melodic line and irregular metre” ends still in “weary resignation.” The trio has more of calm assurance, something very near content, and its last few notes on the violas have an unearthly and peaceful beauty. The adagio keeps the haunting half sad, half tender, spirit of the other movements, and as it proceeds emphasizes more and more a sense of yearning for an un- attainable something—indeed, to some hearers its close seems almost like a passionate appeal'—in romantic terminology, which is hardly to the point here, “the wail of a spirit struggling against fate.” The last movement does not begin with any solution or panacea. Against a persistent bass and a steady throbbing in the middle strings, the first violin now argues, now tries by sheer intensity to find some freedom for its sing- ing, but in vain—until the bass suddenly pauses as if to listen and in a few measures the music swings off into a gay, rocking allegro which lasts till the end. The joy is still tempered, per- haps by reminiscences of what has gone before. Themes come