Books › Musical Courier 1928-05-10: Vol 96 Iss 19, 1928 › scan 18
Scan 18
Musical Courier 1928-05-10: Vol 96 Iss 19, 1928
71 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 19. See the scan on archive.org.
1HIS PERFORMANCE SPELLS PERFECTION
2—Leonard Liebling.
4COMPLETELY THE MASTER
5—Pitts Sanborn.
7ADMIRABLE ALWAYS
8—Lawrence Gilman.
10CELLO AT ITS BEST
11By Olin Downes, New York Times
13YESTERDAY afternoon in Town Hall Felix Salmond gave a cello recital which must be ranked with the finest concerts of the kind that have been given this season. Assisted by Dr. S. Rumschisky, pianist, he played the sonatas of Rachmaninoff in G minor, Brahms in F major and Grieg in A minor.
15A sonata by Rachmaninoff—or at least the G minor sonata played yesterday—may offer pitfalls for the interpreter with less than the finest taste and the restraint and sense of proportion so necessary to the artist. For it would be easy to sentimentalize this music.
17Mr. Salmond played all of it with exemplary taste, with admirable style, losing sight of no expressive detail, giving the smallest passage significance by virtue of his art. He was assisted in a singularly sensitive and thoughtful manner by a pianist with a true sense of ensemble.
19Mr. Salmond should be heard more frequently in recital. He has appeared less often of late seasons as a soloist than as a participant in ensemble performances of varying quality. When he is wholly himself, standing, as it were, on his own feet, he is at his best and is, in fact, one of the best and most interesting solo players of his instrument known at this time to the American public.
21He has not only the technical background, which should be so complete that the listener forgets all about technic, but he has an individual warmth of tone and style, a communicative and poetic spirit which put him in a particular niche, apart from his fellows.
23The audience had reason to appreciate this yesterday afternoon. To each composer Salmond gave his due and added something of his own. The music was not merely mastered, it was assimilated and recreated in performance. The cello as a solo instrument may easily prove a bore. Yesterday the audience was absorbed in the music and the performance.
25GOLDEN TONED CELLO
26New York Sun
28THESE two fine artists appeared together last season and it was a rare treat for music lovers to have the pleasure of hearing their finely adjusted ensemble again.
30The three sonatas listed, while long known to concert halls, are not so frequently heard. Each one offers a wealth of musical beauty but of strongly contrasting character.
32Mr. Salmond's golden tone shone forth in the adagio of Brahms, but the work of both players was always warmly applauded.
34PHENOMENAL PLAYING
35New York Evening World
37PHENOMENAL ensemble playing negotiated by Felix Salmond, cellist, with Dr. S. Rumschisky in remarkable co-operation at the piano, turned their joint sonata recital at Town Hall yesterday afternoon into one of the prime musical events of an exceptionally heavy season. Such extraordinary artistry as these consummate musicians delighted their many hearers with leaves one rather baffled for words adequate to convey an approximate idea of its perfection. For blending of piano and string tone, unanimity of spirit, depth of poetry, and technical proficiency this ensemble work will probably wait long for a peer.
39In the profoundly imaginative and illuminating interpretations of the Sonata in G minor by Rachmaninoff, the Sonata in F major by Brahms and the Grieg Sonata in A minor, Mr. Salmond's ravishing tonal palette, grace of phrasing and exquisiteness of nuance found complete response in Dr. Rumschisky's magnificent work at the piano. Dr. Rumschisky possesses the ideal touch for ensemble playing, which never disturbs the balance of tone. As a technician he disclosed attainments of the first rank. There were occasions, as in the pedal point on G in the Coda of the Rachmaninoff first movement, where the pianist took over a tone already announced by the cello so skillfully that the transition could hardly be detected, and the afternoon teemed with such bits of sheer magic.
41Mr. Salmond is under the management of
43BECKHARD AND MACFARLANE, Inc.
44New York Chicago Boston
45STEINWAY PIANO COLUMBIA RECORDS
47NEVER MORE BEAUTIFUL
48By Lawrence Gilman, New York Tribune
50IT may be doubted if Mr. Salmond, in the course of his many appearances here, ever played more beautifully than he did yesterday.
52Admirable as his performances have always been, his tone yesterday seemed to have taken on an added richness, an added glow and power, and his phrasing was of an unforgettable expressiveness. The playing of his associate, Dr. Rumschisky, was that of an accomplished artist.
54The recital gave evident pleasure to a discriminating audience.
56ALCHEMY OF GREAT ART
57New York World
59WE will say, just for the sake of argument, that you sat in Town Hall yesterday afternoon musing of this and that, vaguely conscious of a voice that crooned and cried out in despair or sighed in gentle meditation. And lovely visions crept into your musings—rose petals fluttering in a drowsy summer breeze, an old love song heard through the blue of some soft Italian night or the frown and whirling wrath of an August storm.
61It did not seem to matter that here was Felix Salmond working magic and telling marvelous fables as he bent his tenuous frame in an ordinary chair, or that Dr. Rumschisky continued where Mr. Salmond left off, etching in the details, strengthening the whole, while that golden, bitter-sweet voice sang on and on, to the utter contentment of the entire house.
63The cold print of programs always is misleading. Who could measure in prosaic type the discursive beauty of the Rachmaninoff Sonata in G minor, the benevolent understanding of the Brahms Sonata in F or the enchantment of the Grieg Sonata in A minor?
65These things look well enough in print, but Mr. Salmond transformed them into life itself by the alchemy of a great art. It was a big recital in a waning season.
67RAVISHING COLOR
68New York Telegram
70WHAT shall be said at this date of the playing of Felix Salmond that has not been said over and over and with searching ingenuity of eloquence? He is completely the master of his instrument. His tone has the ravishing color of Venetian painting; he models a musical phrase as Benvenuto Cellini wrought form from gold. And his art is alive, warm, vibrant, kindling. Even at the hands of a player of rank the tone of the 'cello may in its luscious beauty prove monotonous. Perhaps the highest praise that could be spoken of Mr. Salmond were a sweeping-absolution from even the faintest suspicion of anything that approaches monotony.
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