SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 110, 12 May 1930, Page 8

SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT

(To the Editor.) "-- Sir,—Will you allow me a few lines to comment upon the notice of' last night's Symphony Orchestra concert appearing in to-night's "Post"? Whilst it is undoubtedly refreshing to see an attempt made towards genuine constructive criticism of,a musical function instead of the indiscriminate adulation which, I fear, has been all too common in the past, there are several points in this report to which one may be pardoned for taking exception. . In the first place, your critic casts au altogether uncalled-for slur upon Mendelssohn's birth by asserting that "Mendelssohn «was one of the very few great musicians born in fortuitous circumstances." The penultimate word is either a euphemism or an antiphrasis: it is certainly ambiguous, and there are other sentences further on, the precise meaning of which is by no means clear. For instance, -again referring to Mendelssohn, your critic writes: "If one's admiration for his work places him alongside Bachj Haydn, etc. ... he is in the first flight, but if not quite up with them he is in the second." One might paraphrase the latter half of that sentence by saying: "The leadej* in the race is in front, and those_ not quite up to him are behind"—' a sufficiently obvious deduction, surely, and —as a hypothesis—entirely inapplicable to Mendelssohn—probably the greatest ailround musician who has yet lived. There are yet two more utterances ia the report which* are Browningesque in their obscure profundity, viz.—"There are a few deeper moments in the (Italian) symphony, though even in its darkest expression it is not more agitated than that, say, of prosperous gentlemen who, when in church, desire to associate themselves with miserable sinners." For sheer I lucidity, this is comparable with a quotation' from the immortal Captain Bunsby,: "For why? Which Way? If so, why not? Therefore." . "The intonations of the. ' climaxes were also admirably performed" is ' the other oracular remark which has set my brow in corrugated perplexity. Your critic must be given credit for sincerity of purpose, but it is a pity that his report should bear the impress of carelessness, as that naturally detracts from its authority.. '■ ■ ■ \ In regard to the concert itself, I think it may truthfully be said that it was one of the most enjoyable yet heard here; and I believe it is a fact that the Mendelssohn, Concerto, so masterfully played by Mr. Dei Mauny, was heard for the first time iv Wellington with full orchestral accompaniment since Verbrugghen was here.—i lam'etC-' iJ D.AUSTIN.

["The Post's" critic replies as followsi. "Perhaps the brevity of Mr. Austin's letter has cramped his logic, for analogy is not logic. I still stand to my guns, and prefer that the correspondent's criticism bo read as a whole, and not from a few sentences taken from the context. The method of taking sentences here and there from a report that has been - carefully; thought out and compressed so that no sentence stands alone, savours much o£ Antonio's remark to Bassanio in 'The Merchant of Venice'—'The devil can'cite scrip-! ture for his purpose, etc'"]