Music
Dr. Weingartner and Brahms
THERE were two opinions, apparently, about Dr. Weingartner's handling of Brahms at the Royal Philharmonic Society's concert last week. One party found it too slow in pace and too strict in rhythm—in other words, rigid and dull. The other thought it all extraordinarily clear, well-built and euphonious. If I may intrude a purely personal experi- ence, I confess to having gone to Queen's Hall feeling unwell with a chill and in expectation of a 'heavy evening with a wearisome task at the end. I came out exhilarated as one mysteriously is when fine music has been finely played. I do not intend to attempt an explanation of this physical tonic effect : I merely record it as a fact.
The public is, perhaps, inclined to underestimate, in the presence of younger and more brilliant stars, the clear and steady light that Dr. Weingartner, now in his 73rd year, still sheds upon the great classics of Symphony. He brings to his performances a mature wisdom, that knows how to look beyond all details to the end. So it is not for wayside beauties on the road nor even for a conspicuous finish that we must look in his performances, though I do not think that in the matter of polish the Allegretto of the Second Symphony could have been better done. Still less does he attempt to impose upon the music a personal reading, altering the composer's thought so that it takes on something of his own idiosyncrasy. His conducting has two supreme merits. He sets the tempo with firmness and decision : there is no mistaking from the first beat what it is to be. In the second place, while holding steadily to the tempo, he allows space within it for each instrument that has some- thing important to say to speak with full effect. He gives flexibility and shape to the phrasing, so that, although his departures from strict tempo are imperceptible, there is no sense of rigidity, but rather a serenely flowing melodic line. This it is that gives structural unity and solidity to each move- ment. The conductor's motto of Prospice finem was most clearly applied to Brahms's Third Symphony in F major. This is a work in which, for the first time I believe, the main conflict is reserved for the finale instead of being fought out in the opening movement. Beethoven had often successfully achieved a climax in his finales, but it is always in his first movements, even in the Choral Symphony, that the most important things are said. This Third Symphony Contains a complete answer to those who accuse Brahms of merely build- ing up massive structures according to a plan conceived by his predecessors. For it is constructed on what was at the time a new principle of organic growth from first bar to last, without any resort to " mottoes " or cyclic themes, in spite of the important part played by the notes F A flat F with which it opens. Dr. Weingartner very rightly emphasised the major importance of the finale by making the first three movements a prelude to action. One might feel at the time that the first movement could be more brightly played, .while the Allegretto was taken rather slower than usual (Brahms's qualification of poeo was the justification) so that it took on a strange air of mystery. But the contrasting splendour of the finale proved to be the conductor's complete vindication.
There are still those who criticise Brahms's instrumentation. In last week's The Listener a correspondent wrote to say that the " coarseness of fibre " that Brahms sometimes displayed in his social contacts, comes out in his instrumentation, which is " cold, grey and dull." It is odd that if I were asked to find adjectives for it, I should choose, " warm, brown and rich." But that is beside the point. Brahms was not always im- peccable in this matter, especially in his habit of ending movements with a long held chord for the wind combined with a crescendo and a diminuendo. It needs great care to obtain a satisfactory balance, for these chords are apt to sound thick and ugly. Dr. Weingartner showed that it can be done. As to Brahms's orchestration in general, I would say, with the greatest English authority on the composer, that he was the " most distinct orchestrator " of his period. Because he refused to follow the example of Wagner, he is set down as a clumsy orchestrator, though he spent the greater part of his life in evolving an orchestral texture of his own, which became in the end the exact, if not always in minor details a precise, medium for the expression of his thoughts.
VXF.LEY HUSSEY.
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