MUSIC
LIKE all those, I suppose, who for one reason or another can go to the theatre only about once every two years, I must unconsciously have formed a naively glamorous idea of the dramatic critic's life ; and, when I read their notices of Porgy and Bess, I promised myself wistfully that for once I too would experience these emotions that grip you by the throat and turn you into the street pale and shattered, yes, but purged also. Too long, 1 said to myself, have I emerged from the Wigmore Hall in perfect command of myself and my emotions, no more than a little sleepy and irritated and fumbling mentally for a new epithet to suggest the quality of the latest trans- atlantic precision pianist or the old acquaintance whose voice would make a neat pattern on a seismographic chart. I was to taste primitive negro tragedy in a form which had stirred even my most blase dramatic colleagues to the heart.
At the Stoll Theatre I was not too surprised to find a musical- comedy audience which chatted through any music that might be played with the curtain down. I had been warned not to expect a great musical experience, although I understood that the music of Porgy and Bess had a quality and a flavour which justified my taking the Press tickets from my dramatic colleague. During the first act I quickly retrenched my musical expectations. This was a negro folk-opera, I reminded myself, a musical comedy perhaps, even a play with music. Yes, that was it, a play with music, for hadn't I read everywhere of its stunning dramatic impact ? And, waiting patiently to be stunned, I had time to admire and to enjoy the charm- ing naturalness and vitality of the whole cast, the familiar nostalgic lilt of the negro tunes in their tasteful party dresses ; and also to reflect that, if this were indeed the only work of Gershwin's orches- trated by himself, I for one could hardly distinguish his orchestration from that of the syndicates usually employed.
There were one or two real hits, though they delighted rather than stunned ; the three women denying to the coroner any knowledge of the murder in clipped, three-part answers hurled from their balconies would do our own Mr. Britten credit. But I waited in vain for the dramatic knock-out blows and the musical " numbers " which, on whatever level, would remain without fail in my memory. Two murders, a picnic, the inevitable creeping-to-Jesus, a little mild white brutality, the usual disappointment of those who, crippled or not, engage their lives and hearts to the " good prostitute "—it all added up to what the posters call " a colourful evening's entertain- ment," with a strong dose of sentimentality. If such a spectacle can stir so profoundly those whose trade it is to visit the theatre six nights a week, what would their reactions be to Carmen, to Traviata or Tosca—the daily diet of the music critic ? And feeling like the returned traveller of La Fontaine's two pigeons, I rebuked myself for my temporary infidelity and vowed to travel no more, not even to les rives prochaines in Southampton Row.
Guido Cantelli, who is conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in a series of concerts at the Festival Hall, is a disciple of Toscanini's in spirit as well as in fact. His interpretation of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony—fast allegretto and almost jaunty trio, where the over- accentuation of the first beat was a real blemish—revealed some of the less happy of the maestro's legacies, the occasional mannerisms from which even the greatest are not free. But in Ravel's second Daphnis and Chloe suite the insistence on pure singing in every remotest cranny of the score, the broad objective vision coupled with the finest attention to detail, made the performance an unforget- table experience. As for the Bolero, perfect rhythmic and dynamic control produced that effect of an orgy that is also a highly organised work of art which makes it unique of its kind in music.
MARTIN COOPER.
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