No one has caught and embodied in music the mood and scene of this hour, with its caressing coolness, its murmuring ripples, whispering secrets of other days, like Rubinstein, though many have attempted it with more or less success. Of his five barcarolles, all beautiful and characteristic, the most faultlessly typical seems to me the one in G major which I have selected for special mention.
This is not only one of the most graceful and characteristic, as well as most perfect in form and finish, but also decidedly the most realistic of the five. The rhythmic play of the oars, the undulating movement of the boat, and the constant plash of the water, are all vividly suggested, and the melody of the boatman’s song, original with Rubinstein, is very appropriate and typical, heard in intermittent fragments as if sung fitfully in broken snatches. The chords accompanying the melody should be given lightly, though in nearly strict time, in regular, rhythmic pulsations, but with a broken arpeggio effect, that may well coincide with the representation of rippling water, which idea is to be kept in mind.
The passages in double-thirds, which form the principal difficulty of the work, must be rendered with the utmost smoothness and delicacy. It is a good plan to begin each passage with a very low and extremely loose wrist, raising it gradually till quite high toward the middle of the run and then lowering it as gradually and easily to the end. This insures absolute flexibility and enhances the undulating effect. The following little verses, by T. Buchanan Read, express exactly in words the mood of this barcarolle, and I never play it without thinking of them:
“My soul to-day
Is far away,
Adrift upon the Vesuvian bay.
My winged boat,
A bird afloat,
Glides by the purple peaks remote.
Across the rail