MUSIC Some Modern Chamber-Music VAUGHAN WILLIAMS'S new String Quartet, first
performed last month at the National Gallery, was played again by the Menges String Quartet at Messrs. Boosey and Hawkes's concert at -Wigmore Hall last Saturday. As the work is designed as a birthday present for the viola-player in the Quartet, the composer has set himself the problem of writing *a work in which that usually modest member of the consort shall be the protagonist. It was a problem after the com- poser's heart, for, like Brahms and Mozart, he has always shown a particular liking for the quiet, veiled tone of the instrument. As it is an " occasional " work, he has not written a grand heroic first movement nor a dramatic finale. The core of it is the beautiful meditative slow movement with its pendant epilogue, a singularly affectionate piece of music. The two quick movemenfs are there to set off its tranquil loveliness, and in them the problem of balance is not always so satisfactorily solved.
In the same programme were two chamber-works for wind and strings, a Concertino by Janacek, and Howard Ferguson's Octet. Janacek's music purports to represent the sulkiness of a hedgehog, the annoyance of a squirrel, the hoots of owls and so on. But sulks and tantrums are at best tedious, and this animal charade proved to be singularly without wit. Although Ferguson's Octet is ten years old, I happen not to have heard it before. While it does not strike out any " new paths," this is not eclectic or derivative music. The composer knows what he wants to say and says it with cogency and force. There is no fumbling or indecision, nor any triviality in die ideas.
DYNELEY HUSSEY.
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