Kubelik.
November 5, 1902.
Popularity such as Mr. Jan Kubelik, the young Bohemian violinist, at present enjoys makes it very difficult to criticise his performance. He has not to meet the same conditions as other violinists. Thousands of persons who care little or nothing for music attend his recitals merely because he is a recognised society pet, and he commands a fee that makes it impossible for orchestral societies to engage him. The restrictions imposed by this state of things are obvious. He can only play with pianoforte accompaniment, or with none at all; he is obliged to adhere almost entirely to music that is light in style and of only secondary artistic worth, and during a certain proportion of each recital he has to give himself up entirely to sensationalism. Thus, after hearing him play through three complete recital programmes, we do not feel qualified to express more than a very fragmentary opinion upon his art. That he has all the ordinary technique of the instrument at his fingers' ends is a notorious fact. His tone is never remarkable for volume, but often for sweetness. His truth of intonation in the midst of intricate passage-work is remarkable, and gives the sense of hearing a rare kind of satisfaction. His memory seems to be entirely trustworthy, and his manner is free from affectation; but as to his musical conception, we can only say that it is quite adequate to the interpretation of such a charming piece of light, racy, and popular music as Grieg's third Sonata. The one scrap of Bach that he played yesterday—the unaccompanied Prelude in E major—was not specially well done, and how he plays Beethoven, Mozart, or any of the great masters we do not know at all. His most recherchés effects of tone Mr. Kubelik seems to hold in reserve for the encore pieces. In the allegretto movement of the Grieg Sonata—a most tenderly homesick and lovesick little northern Romance—he did not let his violin sing with all the sweetness of which it is capable, as was afterwards shown in the arrangement of Schubert's "Ave Maria" and in an unpublished Serenade by the performer's friend and compatriot Drdla—both played as extra pieces at the end of the recital. Virtuoso music, in the rendering of which Mr. Kubelik is well known to be a great expert, was represented in yesterday's recital by the following pieces:—Wieniawski's Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's "Faust," Paganini's caprice "I Palpiti," Bazzini's "Ronde des Lutins," the last-named played among the encore pieces. We do not, as a rule, care for the Fantasia on operatic airs, but Wieniawski's "Faust" Fantasia is written with such wonderful ingenuity and musical skill that it cannot be placed in the same category with the mere strings of tunes with perfunctory accompaniments and connecting sections that such pieces usually are. The Variation on the waltz theme, with the melody in harmonics and the rushing accompaniment figure in the ordinary tone of the instrument, is a marvel of successful audacity. It so happens, too, that the rendering of this almost impossible Variation was the most brilliant thing in yesterday's recital.