Arthur Johnstone

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.

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?

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.

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.