Concerts Reviewed

(asterisk indicates premiere)

October 13, 1946 (Théâtre du Châtelet, Concerts Colonne)

Symphony no. 8, B minor, D. 759, “Unfinished,” Franz Schubert

Tristan und Isolde, WWV. 90, Prelude to Act I, no. 19 and “Prelude und Liebestod,” Richard Wagner

Les trois âmes, “L’âme du feu” and “L’âme des eaux,” Dynam-Victor Fumet

La Conciliabule des arbres, Dynam-Victor Fumet

Le sommeil d’Adam, Dynam-Victor Fumet*

Symphony no. 5, C minor, op. 67, Ludwig van Beethoven

Never has so much music been heard; never has so much been said about music; never have fads been so explicitly revealed: never perhaps have oppositions been so pronounced.

A few main works dominate these quarrels. Are they being heard often enough? Yet, each time they are performed, the audience, the audience that takes part, that reacts, does recognize them, just as they recognize performances inspired by the same spirit.

During the Fauré Festival at Harvard last year, it was Danseuse, it was Inscription sur le sable, it was the Quintet no. 2 that received the most enthusiastic reception. These sober works, pared-down one could say, appeared the richest, the densest, the newest.

When Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, when Perséphone, when the Symphony of Psalms, when the Symphonies [of Wind Instruments] are performed, does the audience have a single doubt?

When Toscanini executes one of his performances where perfection is drawn from obedience, is the audience mistaken?

In principle, I am meant to speak to you only about new works; but in the meantime, I cannot resist telling you what a welcome the audience gave Sunday to no less than … Beethoven's Fifth Symphony!

How was such enthusiasm unleashed? By what “effects,” by what experiments, what concessions, what “dramatization”? Simplicity itself: simplicity shining a bright light onto the work.

“L’on ne peut juger de la musique,” Rameau tells us, “que par le rapport de l’ouïe, et la raison n’y a d’autorité qu’autant qu’elle s’accorde avec l’oreille.” [We may judge music only through hearing, and reason has no authority unless it is in harmony with the ear]. Reason and feeling, on the same footing.