MUSIC
To perform a whole act of the Ring is probably the only satis- factory way of transferring Wagner to the concert-hall. No act lends itself so well to this translation as the first of Die Walkiire, where there are only three characters engaged and there is no action which cannot easily be imagined by the audience. On March 9th Dr. Furtwiingler effectively transformed the Albert Hall into Hunding's tree-centred dwelling by the use of his magic wand ; for under his baton the Philharmonia Orchestra revived the glories of Wagner's orchestral palette, glories too long forgotten and only occasionally hinted at in Covent Garden performances of the Ring. And how much lies with the orchestra ! When tempi arc dead right, when the strings—and in this act, the 'cellos particularly— sing and the horns give a round, full-throated, glowing tone with no hint of aeration, when the surface is unbroken by those strange bumps which suggest an air-pocket or the presence of gremlins in the orchestral pit—why then, and only then, do we start worrying about the singers. it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dennis Brain's horn-playing contributed as much to the success of this performance as the singing of any of the soloists. Not that these were in any way negligible. Hilde Konetzni has sung with more lyrical fervour—who, after all, could find the Albert Hall platform and the immediate proximity of the orchestra around, instead of beneath her, inspiring ?—but in style and finish of phrase she was admirable. Ludwig Suthaus had that rare quality in a tenor, a full and beautiful lower register, which made the broken phrases of the wounded Siegmund and the pathetic cadences of his narrative no dramatic muttering but truly musical singing. In return for this, his top register was excessively baritone in quality, even for a German tenor ; but his interpretation of the part was finely and deeply felt. Hunding without his bearskin and his spear is a difficult figure to bring to life, but Josef Greindl's fine voice and drat atic sense of phrase made him remarkably effective.
This performance of Wagner, in which everything depended on the music and there was no appeal to the eye, suggested to me a more choral consideration. Why is it that from the very opening the storm in the Walkiire prelude gripped and convinced me at the Albert Hall as it has never done recently at Covent Garden ? Why is it, more generally, that I have the impression of knowing after half-a-dozen bars the quality of so many singers and instru- mentalists ? It is surely a question of the '' tone of voice," which is right or wrong from the start, because it reveals the artist's whole approach to a composer. Furtwangler's Wagner, like Beecham's Haydn, seems to me exactly right—not simply in tempo and phrasing but in subtler points of relief and shading, which seem
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