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

February, 193b VoL V* No* 5 161 back in new guises; there is no break in the unity though the mood is wholly new. True, the melody at times grows sterner, passages might be so played as to sound almost harsh, but the last note leaves the listener satisfied that the whole work has led up to the frank delight of the conclusion. In the mass of writing which this quintet has provoked, there is little but praise. Many critics have interpreted it primarily in terms of drama, struggle, passion, of the Beetho- venish variety. Nohl said it betrayed “many of the deeper emotions” of the composer’s soul and stood alone “in a storm of passionate sorrow, and in the utterance of heartfelt despair.” Abert sees it as “a piece filled with the resignation of despair, a struggle with destiny ... a self-tormenting surrender to the inevitable.” Oubilichev declared that it was “a complete little drama with its exposition, its vicissitudes, and its happy de- nouement, but a drama without events ... a series of psy- chological studies, which derive one from another and mutually explain one another.” Cobbett, though, in his Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, adds a very helpful note of warning against seeing too much of the dramatic, of romantic self- expression, in the quintet. Read these things in as the piece becomes more and more familiar, but let the first hearing be simply the response to pure music, firm in line, rich in color, and sparkling with melodic and harmonic inventiveness. It is music first of all; if it is a psychological document or a tract for the times or a revelation of personality, it is so only secondarily. What it may lose by this from the romantic ppint of view is surely compensated for by its superb freedom from the kind of stuffiness sometimes felt after too prolonged an immersion in the works of composers who must in music dramatize ceaselessly their own heartburnings, the sorrows of their nations, or emotional crises completely real only to themselves. Yet, though it is music without a “program” and like other great things in music holds its own by sheer musical beauty whether it seems “sad” or “gay”, dramatic or undramatic, it is the work of a master’s maturity and is so packed with the inspiration and technical skill of a genuis that it may develop itself in many ways in the mind of an audience. The romantic may, if he will, turn it all into “struggle”; the intellectual may find days of delight in following out to the last detail its technical perfections; the less serious will contentedly enjoy it “just because they do.” Written in 1787, it is the work of the Mozart who had just produced a successful “Figaro” and was on the threshold of the last years out of which came his greatest operas and the three most famous symphonies. Perhaps the mood of the quintet is hinted at in a letter which the composer wrote within a few months of the date of its creation: “I have long since accustomed myself in all things to expect the worst. As death, rightly considered, fulfils the real design of our life, I have for the last two years made myself so well acquainted with this true friend of mankind, that his image has no longer any terrors for me, but much that is peaceful and consoling.” To others its effect may be that of an autumn sunset, awaking a strange sense of uneasy loneliness even while the color thrills and exalts. Still others may find the music redolent of ever- green woods on a rainy day, when at first everything seems keyed to damp, to grey, to melancholy, until suddenly the eye wakes to color and beauty, and the forlorn and drab becomes jewelled and rich. The quintet, like most great music, is a key that will unlock for each hearer as much as he has of emotional and intellectual response. It avoids the error of some more perishable music in that it does not force the listener into an emotional mold which he breaks eagerly as soon as he may, in resentment against coercion. It does not play upon its audience too obviously; it leads rather than drives. Best of all there is in it the magic which speaks directly to anyone, whatever his prejudices, taste, or mood, unless he can somehow deafen himself to the undying power of pure music, no more and no less, expressed in terms as nearly universal as great art may hope to command. Kenneth B. Murdock Sibelius Sibelius: Symphony No. 1, in E minor, Op. 39 (nine sides), and Karelia Suite—Alla Marcia (one side), played by a Sym- phony Orchestra conducted by Robert Kajanus. Columbia Masterworks Set No. 151 (5 D12s, Alb., 7.50). Reviewed in detail in the article, “Two Sibelius Symphonies,” in the January 1931 issue of the P. M. R. Mother Goose Ravel: Ma Mere VOye (“Mother Goose”), played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Kous- sevitzky. Victor 7370-71 (2 D 12s, $2.00 each). I find these “Cinq Pieces Enfantines” among the most ap- pealing things in all modem music. Their leading character- istic of delicate and restrained sentiment is not the one us- ually associated with the name of Maurice Ravel, or indeed with the so-called “modern temper” in music in general, but an expression of this as perfect as in these pieces, is one which is really as much, if not more of an achievement than is that of giving us a pseudo-primitive or ultra-brilliant can- vas as is or frequently done now. To be sure, “expressive- ness” is the basis throughout, but it is of such a refined and unborabastic sort that one cannot help being moved by it. It is marvelous how accurately the composer succeeds in reproducing in miniature each one of the tales chosen. The chaste and aristocratic “Pavane” (it has some resemblance, on a smaller scale to the one for the “Infante Defunte”) is peculiarly fitted to the “Belle au bois dormant;” the second number picturing the consternation and dismay of poor little Hop o’ my Thumb is certainly one of the most felicitous of all, with the childish frantic bewilderment and despair of the expressive violins; what a relief is the unreal and enamel-like delineation of the Fairy Garden after the vulgar over-richness of a similar attempt like the Valse des Fleurs of Tchaikow- sky’s Nut Cracker Suite. Throughout there is very much of the charming and unsophisticated emotion of the ideal fairy tale (which almost no one but an extremely sophisticated composer could translate into musical terms) instead of the cloying sweetness and sickly sentimentality which are so apt to be the result of such an attempt. By issuing this set, Victor fills a gap in its repertory which has somewhat surprisingly existed since the inauguration of the new recording. On hearing the records, however, one is consoled for having had to wait so long. Koussevitzky proves an ideal interpreter, bringing to the music all the re- straint and delicacy which one could wish, and perhaps more than one would have expected if he had never heard him play it. His approach conveys the same sense of sophisti- cation tempered by feeling that Ravel seems to have put into the music. It would be extremely difficult to pick any flaws in the interpretation—perhaps the very end of the fifth movement is not quite successful, although previous to that it goes beautifully. This fault is at least in part due to the turgidity of the recording I am sure, which is all the more surprising from the fact that elsewhere the recording, while it wisely never strives for brilliance or inappropriate realism, is a model of purity. An excellent example among many is the lovely reproduction of the exquisitely played expressive passage for the violins in their upper register in the first part of the Petit Poucet. Anyone who does not already know this music should take immediate advantage of the splendid opportunity to make its acquaintance which is here offered, while those who do know it may be advised that here is an interpretation which, as I have said was worth waiting for. R. H. S. Phillips “MUSIC” Orchestral Edition The First European Orchestra Monthly contains each month a double-sided orchestration F. R. VERNEUIL, Publisher Price: 30c per copy Send for specimen copy Annual Subscription Fee: Yearly $2.50 Subscriptions booked at the offices of The Phonograph Monthly Review, 5 Boylston St., Cambridge, Mass., or at Brussels (Bel- gium), 35 Rue du Forse aux Loups.