MUSIC
THE Henry Wood Concert Society's Elgar Festival has been planned on spacious and ample lines which correspond to the character of the music and indeed alone do it justice. The opening concert by the Halle Orchestra under John Barbirolli gave us excellent perform- ances of the Enigma Variations and the Introduction and Allegro for Strings ; and if the instrumental opulence of the Second Symphony could not conceal the fundamental poverty of the musiC the orchestra was not to blame. Heifetz's playing- of the violin concerto was violinistically perfect, but the perfect precision and suavity of his style emphasised the academic manner of the music at the expense of Elgar's more personal feeling. At the same concert the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent gave excellent performances of the pretty Serenade and Wand of Youth Suite No. 2.
The Chelsea Symphony Orchestra under Norman Del Mar boldly
attempted a work almost exactly contemporary with Elgar's Second Sympheny and violin concerto—Mahler's Ninth Symphony. A similarly vast and ornate upholstery, impressive for its size and ingenuity, half conceals (and grossly overburdens) the almost famine- stricken skeleton of this work. The elegiac, autumnal mood, with its perpetual feminine endings and protracted cadences, is only varied (and the work lasts over eighty minutes) by two scherzos, where Mahler essays the theatrically sinister manner popularised by Liszt and relished by Busoni. A whole epoch, perhaps a whole civilisation, slowly disintegrates before our eyes in this symphony, drooping and wilting from cadence to cadence and finally becoming completely immobilised at the end of the last movement. Rachmaninov hymned the twilight of the Tsarist regime with much the same luxuriant emotionalism, less complex and sophisticated than Mahler, but equally conscious of doom. The funeral music of two great empires has an irresistible attraction for the public, it seems—and it matters very little that the higher brows opt for Franz Josef and the lower for Nicholas II • they both make lovely funerals. And there was Elgar complacently hymning the glories of the British blood and
state, as unaware of imminent disaster as Offenbach in 1869. * * * * The performance of Verdi's Requiem by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under Victor de Sabata stood out even in a season when London has been glutted with fine performances of great music. What is the secret of this music's greatness ? Perhaps the combination of sweetness and strength, for in no other work even of Verdi is the honey so redolent of the lion's carcass, so pure, so earthy and so unsaccharine. De Sabata was at his best with this most Italian of music, and he communicated an almost meridional dramatic intensity to chorus, orchestra and soloists. I have never heard Joan Hammond so nearly overcome the slight emotional inhibition which often prevents her fine voice and singing from communicating its full dose of feeling to an audience. Richard Lewis's voice was perhaps a trifle light for the Albert Hall, but he used it admirably, and Gianpiero Malaspina's potent baritone was enormously effective. Constance Shacklock just missed the full stature of the mezzo-soprano part, though she sang with style and real fervour.
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At the Stoll Theatre Paolo Silveri's Rigoletto is a magnificently finished and deeply moving performance. Graciela Rivera combines an exquisitely girlish and appealing appearance as Gilda with a pure and agile voice, almost too light to mould a phrase wholly satis- factorily, but full of charm. Luigi Infantino (the Duke) has an excellent voice, but his use of it, technically and stylistically, is very uncertain. The production is excellent, and the sets, though too small for the stage, are most attractive. Don Pasquale has Martin Lawrence in the title role and Mariano Stabile as Dr. Malatesta, the same excellent combination as last year. Bruno Landi sings well as Ernesto, but fails dramatically, and Dana Bayan's Norina is so feeble that it destroys the whole musical balance of the work.
MARTIN COOPER.
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