RACHMANINOFF WORK PRESENTED Russian Composer's Second Symphony Performed by Orchestra, Dr. Muck Directing Dec. 1. 1917 Boston Symphony Orchestra, Karl Muck, Conductor-Seventh program, presented in Symphony Hall, Boston, Mass., afternoon of Nov. 30, 1917: Rachmaninoff, symphony in E minor, No. 2, op. 27; Mendelssohn, overture, nocturne and scherzo from "Midsummer Night's Dream" music, op. 61. The second symphony of Rachmaninoff is conceived in such large architectural terms and it has such a complex framework, that listeners in the first minutes of its performance can hardly help being at a loss what to make of it. And yet, vast though it is, it proves in the course of interpretation to have a frank unity of plan that makes everybody like it. By the time it is three-quarters presented, anyone can plainly see that it is merely an adaptation of the musical forms in which Beethoven wrote his symphonies, sonatas and quartets; that it is a four-movement composition, with opening and closing allegro movements of rather strict, though exaggerated, contour, and with intervening scherzo and slow movement. It is found, indeed, to be as clear in its general scheme of contrasts of the intellectually pondering mood, and the humorous, the romantic, and the triumphantly achieving moods as any symphony in the repertory of Mozart or Haydn. So there the symphony in E minor stands. a modern edifice in gleaming stone. towering above little brick structures of a century and a half ago, and serving its busy, industrial purpose as inevitably as those structures of low roof and modest tower in its shadow served the exigent, empire-aspiring purpose of a past day. Really, the method according to which this Twentieth Century symphony is put together is intelligible enough to those who have watched the setting-up of concrete posts on a town building site, who have stood by when steel timbers were laid across, and who have noted 'floor rise upon floor until height found its proportion to base. The only thing about the architectonic pile of the Russian composer that is hard to understand is the overlaid instrumental covering. This is elaborated into so many ramifications of ornament and forced into so many pretensions and contradictions of design, that people perforce wonder whether the builder is working in the Egyptian, the Greek, the Romanesque or the Gothic style. half of the concert, sound thin. Mendelssohn in his fragile way is as great a master of tone balance as is Rachmaninoff. If his orchestration were less delicate and less dependent on the light interplay of solo instruments, and if an expansion of the tone volume of his music, such as was tried with Haydn's symphony, "The Chase," at the concerts of last week, were justifiable, the seventh Boston Symphony program might also have merited the praise of balance. Perhaps such a condition is necessary in the making of symphonies today. It may be that a scheme of melodic structure SO simple and strong as Rachmaninoff's would appear bald and angular unless masked behind a rich ornamental façade, responding to an academic notion of decorative beauty, to some fashion of investiture authorized by the Beaux Arts professors. At all events, the themes of the symphony played on Friday afternoon are dressed up in some of the most showy sonorities that have yet been contrived. The melodies and harmonies of the piece are clothed with an almost measureless wealth of orchestral sound. are How studiously the climaxes plotted! With what regularity, and still with what variety, crescendo succeeds crescendo! Tone colors are mixed, to the gaining of all transparent effects imaginable, but never is a touch of indefiniteness or of impressionism allowed. This painter is especially skillful in his use of the violin tints, knowing how to keep their individuality even when using them for background. He is skillful, furthermore, in keeping his string, wood and brass choirs distinct and in preventing any department of tone from becoming submerged. Which means that Rachmaninoff is a master of the technique of tone balance, though he is better at balancing masses of tone than in setting off a single voice against a group of voices. One of the most noticeable solo exploits in the symphony is the passage for clarinet in the slow movement, which intrudes itself in a rather forlorn, detached and unpersuasive manner. The symphony was a selection to call out the best powers of the conductor and the players, and the interpretation of it was among the noteworthy accomplishments of the first two months of the season. Necessarily its splendors of tone made the overture, nocturne and scherzo of Mendelssohn, which entered into the second |