MUSIC
AMY SHUARD, who sang Rezia's great aria from Weber's Oberon at the Prom. on August 16th, has a very fine voice. (I owe her an apology, by the way, for referring to her in the Spectator of July 21st as a pianist.) Over its whole wide range the voice is firm and vigorous and has a dramatic ring which is rare in English voices. As a member of the Sadler's Wells Company Miss Shuard will be very much in demand and it is to be hoped that as a young_artiste who promises so well both vocally and dramatically, she will not be pushed forward too quickly but allowed to grow into the larger roles. Ocean, thou mighty monster " is too big for her at present, well though she sang it ; and this too speedy graduation, fatal to first-class performances in any department, is especially dangerous for singers whose instrument is the most sensitive and most easy to damage irreparably. There have been all too many cases of good young voices possessed by singers who were potentially fine artistes but have been over-exploited, and have ended in their middle thirties as efficient hacks.
The Alexandrine Greek pianist Themeli, who played the Schumann concerto on August 17th, is totally blind. The purely technical disabilities he most successfully surmounted—there were few wrong notes and piano and orchestra were well together, though this must surely have entailed some concession of sovereign rights on the part of the conductor, Sir Malcolm Sargent. But is it possible for a blind musician to have a really live sense of rhythm ? Obviously the regular mechanical beat of the metronome is as clear to him as to any other man, but the minute variations, ebb and flow, which distinguish a truly live and poetic from a dead mechanical rhythm are surely modelled on visible natural phepomena—a tree in the wind, the gait of animals (or even human beings), the move- ment of water. The absence of this natural rhythm and the faint air of guardedness, even in solo passages, destroyed- the lyrical, confidential character of the work. It was a most remarkable per- formance for an artist with so grave a handicap and it obviously appealed to the sporting instincts of the audience ; but it is the duty of the critic to attempt a greater objectivity, to be no more influenced by an artist's blindness than by his being the critic's brother-in-law. Those who would be most incensed by his applying a different standard of performance to his relations are often those who would plead the " sporting " element in performances by child prodigies and their like as sufficient reason for a relaxation of standards.
Colin Horsley's playing of Rachmaninov's Variations on a Theme of Paganini on August 22nd was masterly. He has a very fine technique, in which brilliance is but a single component part, to be used when occasion demands and not paraded unnecessarily ; and his sense of style and character are admirable. His playing .0 lacking in size at present—the big melody of the eighteenth varia- tion was hardly big or warm enough and the finale was on the small side—but his performance, at the same concert, of Ireland s concerto showed the delicacy of his lyrical, feeling .and the incisive- ness of his musical intelligence. MARTIN COOPER.
Previous page
