Scan 18
Musical Courier 1896-12-02: Vol 33 Iss 874, 1896
58 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
3BOSTON, Mass., November 29, 1896.
5THE Kneisel Quartet gave the second of its concerts this season in Association Hall the 23d. The program was as follows:
7Quartet, op. 17. …………………………………………….Sgambati
8Sonata for piano and violin, A minor. …………………Paderewski
9Quartet, G major, op. 18, No. 2. ………………………..Beethoven
11John Burroughs, in his Whitman, a Study, asserts that "the modern standard in art is becoming more and more what has been called the canon of the characteristic, as distinguished from the Greek or classic canon of former beauty. * * * Classic art holds to certain fixed standards; it seeks formal beauty; it holds to order and proportion in external parts; its ideal of natural beauty is the well ordered park or grove or flower garden. It has a horror of the wild and savage. * * * The modern mind has a sense of the vast, the infinite, that the Greek had not, and it is drawn by informal beauty more than by the formal."
13I tumbled on this extract from Mr. Burroughs' new book the day after I heard Sgambati's quartet, and I wondered if it would serve as key to certain riddles in the music. From Mr. Burroughs' statement thought went back to this quotation from the marvelous first chapter of Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native: "Indeed it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty is not approaching its last quarter. The new vale of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in Thule: human souls may find themselves in closer and closer harmony with external things, wearing a somberness distasteful to our race, when it was young. * * * The time seems near, if it has not actually arrived, when the mournful sublimity of a moor or sea or a mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely consonant with the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle gardens of South Europe are to him now, and Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded by as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of Scheveningen."
15And then back to Bacon, curious concerning the effect of grease on boots and the mythological wisdom of the ancients: "There is no Excellent Beauty that hath not some Strangeness in the Proportion."
17Surely the pleasure in hearing Sgambati's quartet is an answer to the appeal of a lately learned emotion.
19* * *
21I remember when I first heard this music played by the Listemann Quartet (November 11, 1889, is the date of the first performance in Boston), the first movement and the finale seemed in large measure hideous.
23The Kneisel Quartet played it October 22, 1894, and the same movements still seemed disagreeable; in certain passages positively ugly. But last week, lo! and behold, there was a fascination in the more aggressive ugliness, and the reproach made against Sgambati, that he does not treat the quartet scheme respectfully, but tries to escape from its spell and steal hints at orchestral effects, was converted into a certificate of merit.
25Of course after the quartet of Sgambati we all welcomed the quartet of Beethoven, and we drew breaths of relief, and we winked decorously at each other, and said, "Ah, here's the true music! I could listen to this all night. It's so simple and frank and beautiful!" We all said this, honestly and enthusiastically. And yet the week has gone by and somehow or other the impression left by the music of Sgambati is stronger than the impression left by that of the music of Beethoven. It's absurd, of course, and it's all wrong—but here's the psychological fact. And what is worse and utterly to be condemned, I cannot rid myself of the conviction that the first name of the Beethoven of op. 18, No. 2, was George—plain, simple George, the George of checks and commerce. I wish the printer would spell "check" "cheque;" the amount would seem larger; the "que" certifies to funds in the bank.
27* * *
29I look over what in all sincerity I wrote about Sgambati's music; that he sold his glorious birthright of spontaneous melody for a mess of pottage prepared by Liszt; that, like the Chosen People, he goes wandering (the translators of the King James version used a stronger word) after strange gods; that he thinks across the Alps—and other phrases which should convince the managing editor of a newspaper that he has a singularly gifted person in the chair of musical criticism and lead him to exclaim, "My God, what if I should lose this man! I must double his salary this moment."
31I still believe that religious bathos in Liszt's most affected and sickening vein disfigures the first measures of the first movement; that the reminiscences of the basilica are the most honest passages, as well as those most creditable to the composer of the movement; that the voice of the Hungarian abbe sojourning in Rome is heard in the andante and even in the finale; that the scherzo is by all odds the most original, spontaneous, firmly knit, artistically balanced of the four movements.
33There are pianists who seem to be greatest, as well as most thoroughly at home, when they get away as far as possible in their performance from the peculiar character of the piano with its irreparable limitations. They are most successful in their imitations of orchestral colorings and nuances. Sgambati, in like manner, is most effective in the string quartet when he writes least in the approved traditional manner of this form. For this some blame him, and they are excellent judges and honorable men. The older I grow the less sure I am of the inevitable, inherent beauty of form, form as it is rigidly taught and understood. Values shift and forms are vaporous things. The aria known to Scarlatti and Carissimi was a fine thing in its day, and the old Scarlatti knew how to move and thrill even in the extreme formality of speech. But to me the conventional aria of the early and middle years of the eighteenth century is a thing more terrible than an army with banners. There is the thought of that sure repeat that waits patiently for its return, and grins sardonically at the audience. "You didn't care for me the first time. Ha-ha," it shrieks, "you must hear me again!" In paying too marked attention to form you are likely to lose that most important thing, vista.
35And now I go back to Mr. Burroughs, as I began with him: "I always think of a regulation verse-form as a kind of corset which does not much disguise a good figure, though it certainly hampers it, and which is a great help to a poor figure. It covers up deficiencies and it restrains exuberances."
37* * *
39Paderewski's violin sonata was played here for the first time by Messrs. Timothée Adamowski and Arthur Foote, October 26, 1891. It was played in a most sympathetic fashion last Monday night (November 23) by Mr. Kneisel and Mrs. Szumowska-Adamowski. The work is not a strong one. There is monotony in melodic and harmonic treatment. There is no point, not even a decided motion toward any point. There is considerable padding, which seems to-day as dull as the padding in the quartet of Beethoven, which was written about a century ago. If Paderewski should play this sonata with some worthy violinist he might hypnotize you into accepting the work and thanking him for it. But once away from the immediate working of his personality the gift seems inconstant; you doubt whether it is worth taking home.
41For there is Kapellmeister musik written by ultra-moderns as well as that written by belated followers of Hummel and Mendelssohn.
43* * *
45How do you identify a work like the Sgambati quartet? It is op. 17, but should you say "Quartet in D flat major," or "Quartet in C sharp minor," with reference in the first case to the first movement, and in the second case to the finale? This quartet has borne here in turn each of these titles.
47I understand that Sgambati has finished a second string quartet, and that the composer would like to have the Kneisel Club visit Rome for concert purposes.
49* * *
51Mr. Rosenthal, alas, was too sick to give his recital the 24th. Dr. Beach forbade his appearance. To quote from the doctor's certificate sent to the newspaper offices, "Mr. Rosenthal has not gained sufficient strength to warrant him in undertaking his concert without serious risk to his health."
53* * *
55The first concert of the twenty-sixth season of the Apollo Club was given in Music Hall the 24th. The club sang Mohr's Hymn (quartet, Messrs. Hobbs, Shirley, Whitten and Daniel), Lloyd's A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Brahms' Lullaby, Gounod's Anvil (solos by Mr. Dwyer and Mr. Townsend), Mosenthal's Music of the Sea, Schulhoff's Shepherd's Farewell (arranged by Storch, with tenor solo by Mr. Dwyer), Pflueger's When All the World Is Young, Lad, and Mendelssohn's The Word Went Forth.
57Mr. Carl Halir, violinist, made his first appearance in Boston on this occasion. He played with piano accompaniment Spohr's concerto No. 8 (Gesangsscene), a romance by Bruch, Ries' Perpetuum Mobile, and for an encore one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. His tone was pure, full, free from sensuousness, without individual
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