It is perhaps because a Promenade audience is so kind and so undiscriminating that these concerts have become the recognized trial ground for new works. This year's novelties have been, on the whole, of little interest. Malipiero's second set of Impressioni dal Vero was the most original, Roger Quilter's Children's Overture the most attractive.
The want of discrimination shown by the audience is most apparent in the case of the vocal and instrumental soloists. A few years ago, it is related, the students of the Paris Conservatoire used to make a hostile demonstration against every concerto on the ground that the concerto was of its nature a bad form of art. There are indeed a fair number of musicians in this country who in private conversation will confess to much the same opinion. Generally, however, if pressed, they will make four or five exceptions, such as the favourite concertos of Mozart and Beethoven, together with Schumann's and the B flat concerto of Brahms. As regards the rest, they at least afford proof of the good manners inculcated at our music schools. The more recent ones, such as those of Rachmaninov and Tcherepnin, are no better than the others. That of Delius alone stands out as a work of real beauty. The real disfigurement of the Promenade Concerts is provided by the singers. One might have supposed that a public which had enjoyed a scena of Wagner or Verdi would refuse to tolerate the vapid domesticities of the second half of the programme. But, alas! it is probably this very domesticity that evokes the applause. The promenaders will admire Isolde's Death Scene or Eri tu, but they must worship at a distance. When they hear the other stuff they know that it is something which they themselves can sing successfully in their own suburban drawing-rooms. Sir Henry Wood was once heard to express the hope that some day there might be a Promenade Concert in London every night of the year. Could that hope ever be realized it would be the noblest monument to the man who for our generation at least has created the Promenade Concerts. But must there always be those songs? They are symbols of bondage to commercial interests.
*****
After five years of absence Busoni has returned to England, and his recital at the Wigmore Hall on October 15th showed that his playing has lost none of its former strength and vitality, whilst it has undoubtedly gained in dignity and serenity. His audience consisted mainly of musicians, and his programme was evidently intended for serious and cultivated listeners. He began with the first prelude and fugue from Bach's Forty-Eight, producing a wonderful effect at the end of the fugue by a continuous haze of pedal, through which the counterpoint yet stood out with perfect clearness. His reading of the Goldberg Variations was startling, both in its quality of tone and in its departures from the text. But it was clear that there was a considered reason for everything that was done, and as a commentary on Bach the performance was of singular interest. Busoni was at his best in Beethoven's Hammerklaviev sonata. It is probably the most difficult work in all the literature of the pianoforte. When Busoni plays one does not take technical difficulties into account; but this sonata is both supremely difficult to understand and supremely difficult to interpret to an audience. To grasp its vastness of conception and to present it without the least appearance of struggle in perfect balance of poetry and philosophy is a task which Busoni alone of living pianists can accomplish. It was evident from the behaviour of the audience after the end of the sonata that they all realised how in comparison with Busoni most other pianists, despite their admirable qualities, are very small fry.
EDWARD J. DENT.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS[4]
[4] In this section we propose to give monthly skeleton lists of the works of modern authors: where feasible of contributors to the issue current.