Tovey on Music
Musical Articles from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. By Donal Francis Tovey. Edited by Hubert J. Foss. (Oxford Universit Press. 12s. 6d.) D. F. TOVEY was a great musical scholar, endowed with a p digious -memory, some wit and uncertain taste. For fifty years a inveterate musical inferiority complex in our nation has led to persistent over-valuation of our musicians by our critics ; eve those few capable of useful and illuminating criticism have shrun from applying any powers they might possess to such an unpatrioti task as penning a single word that might be considered disparaging Tovey suffered with the rest from this undiscriminating acceptanc He was more than gifted enough to be taken seriously, but in th England of his time that seriousness—especially in musical matter —was not to be had, with the consequence that Tovey became mor and more facetious and capricious. He was, within limits, a corn petent pianist, as well as Reid Professor of Music in the Univers t of Edinburgh. As the latter he spoke and wrote about Beethove with real perception ; as the former he seemed incapable (at hi London recitals) of playing Beedpven's sonatas with a proper gra, of their rhythmic outlines. He had not the discipline of a grea executant, and took refuge in capricious fancifulness. But nearly a his faults as a pianist or conductor were the outcome of his musk' environment in this country, where the standards in these matter were definitely lower than on the Continent. In respect of kn,;%% ledge he was the amateur, but could hold his own with the in.) erudite Continental musicians ; it was in the practice not the theo of his beloved art that he was weakest.
Consequently he is at his best in his musical writings. His corn positions—including the 'cello concerto he wrote for Casals—ar merely examples of memory music, the sort of things that virtuo conductors like Weingartner produce—utterly uncreative, witho the smallest touch of personality. It is therefore not surprising find that his most scholarly articles are his best—such as the articl in this book on counterpoint, fugue, sonata. When it comes t purely aesthetic values Tovey is much less reliable ; some of h jokes, such as that on Sullivan's " The Lost Chord "—" we ma thankfully hope that that chord is now lost for ever "—are goo but they inspire a fear that his sense of fun could Outbalance it judgement ; what he writes about opera is often more :han duhiou and his German education kept him ignorant of the work of Gret Monsigny, Berlioz and others in this field. I think he misund stands Mozart's Cosi fan tune ; while not a word of his indicat that he was sensitive to Wagner's radical weakness, a weakn that has become more and more apparent to all good musician whose awareness of higher values is not swamped by the susceptibility to the sheer voluptuousness of masses of rich soup W. J. TURNER.
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