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the sweetness of which it is capable, as was afterwards shown in the arrangement of Schubert's "Ave Maria" and in an unpublished Serenade by the performer's friend and compatriot Drdla—both played as extra pieces at the end of the recital.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.
Kreisler.
November 6, 1902.
We live in an age that seems likely to be known in the future as the period of star violinists. It is curious to note how the musical world illustrates the saying "It never rains but it pours." At one period we have a long string of pianistic infant prodigies. Hoffmann, Hegner, Hambourg—they come rapidly to the front, one after another, growing ever younger and younger, and nearly always beginning with "h." Next we break into the period of youthful violinists, beginning with "k." Kubelik, Kocian, Kreisler come tumbling over each other's heel, each one causing embarrassment to the critics for lack of any stronger terms of commendation than were bestowed upon the last. It is true the string players are not of such tender years as were the pianists on their first appearance. The youngest of the violin prodigies was Bronislav Hubermann, who not many years ago shook his elf-locks at the Philharmonic Society of Vienna and more nearly succeeded in turning the heads of that august, formidable, and severely critical body than might have been thought possible. For the present we are mainly concerned with Mr. Kreisler, who is not so desperately youthful, but is a mature and military-looking man, though he is commonly reckoned among the players of the new school, or the rising generation. His programme yesterday was open to some of the same objections as Mr. Kubelik's on Tuesday evening. It included nothing from the major prophets of music, the most important piece being Tartini's "Trillo del Diavolo" Sonata—no doubt one of the best examples of that school which grew up in Italy soon after the perfecting of the violin at the end of the seventeenth century. In a well-contrasted style was the only other piece in more than one movement that he played, namely, Vieuxtemps' second Concerto. In the rendering of these pieces one noted a peculiarly incisive manner of giving full value to all the detail of the figuration, and also a singing tone of rich and strangely penetrating quality. Mr. Kreisler's style is in sharp contrast with Mr. Kubelik's. Instead of caressing the instrument and coaxing the tone out of it, he wrestles with it and plucks out the heart of its mystery. Nor does he seem to care for the sputtering Paganinities so dear to the heart of Mr. Kubelik. His pieces in the second part of the programme were a rather Mozartian Larghetto from a Sonata by Nardini (an eighteenth-century Italian); a "Tambourin" by Leclair (an eighteenth-century Frenchman), much modernised in the arrangement; a bagatelle called "L'Abeille," by Franz Schubert of Dresden—not, of course, the famous Schubert, but a violinist who died some twenty-five years ago; an arrangement by Marcello Rossi of the "Song without Words" in F, by Tchaïkovsky; and, finally, the Allegretto grazioso from the same Nardini Sonata, played as an encore piece. "L'Abeille"—a clever show-piece in perpetual motion triplets, played with a mute on the bridge—was encored and repeated.