The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-19

lowing account of MT. Spalding's recent concert in that city
 Before Mir Spaldng had drawn his bow upon the stage of Jordan hall yester- day afternoon, his programme spoke for him as the serious minded violinist that h. has been from his young days and as the ripened violinist that he has now become. The virtuoso who in recital would take things easily or who would court the ready applause of his audience hardly returns to the older classics of the violin like the sonata by Corelli with which MT. Spalding began or the tran scription from Bach for violin alone with which he continued or the concerto out of Mozart with which he ended the graver part of his programme Even in the light CT pieces to which he then passed he chose oftener as musician respecting his music than as virtuoso seeking his means to effect. Even the prelude and the Scherzo of his own that he included among these pieces had their persuasive sobriety. Pleasant invention, even if it were not very individual. a faculty for ef-criticism a feeling for melody rhythm and harmony that summed the cheap and the common without lapse into cold and negative austerity distinguished the prelude. The Scherzo displayed the feats that a violinist may do with the violin. but it respected the voice of the instrument and running fancy rather than shrewd calculation seemed to summon and order them.
 Ne VI" Snr'ding chose his music. so he played it, with the skill of virtuoso who, being also musiclar
 ees at the service of his music. He has advanced much in ease ana n..-...
 technical command since he last vcntur | a concert of his own in Boston. He bows more freely; his lingering is more sensitive thought of the means no longer clouds his regard for the resulting voice; the bravura of flageolet tones eerie har- monies and double stopping lies all readily and securely within his powers He has schcned himself to use all his technical abilities evenly and to ply theT
 $. use of the style that the chosen music exacts. He was isobriety itself ,..su < in Corelli's sonata; he magnified them q little in Bach's Adagio and Fugue; he used them with polished discretion in Mozarts concerto: and he was becoming ly warm with them in Paganini's and Joachim's semi-show pieces.
 "Out of this technical skill and this mus cal senshility flowed tone such as Mir Spalding for many year of applica- tion could not summon. If is rich and luminous, edgeless and flowing, warm and transmitting, sensitive always to the un- exaggerated and undistorted voice of the violin and to the contours and the con- tents Of the mus it 's uttering. Only now and then. when M. Spaldng seeks little more emphasis than phrase or progression will bear does it sharpen and not for a moment however curvng and sustained the song. as in Corelli's slow movement. or however manifold the tonal strands in Rach's fugal web does .t fal- ter When it must play over one of the old alegros that begin and end Corelr z sonata, 1t becomes exactly tho even tone, . evenly accented. that the music exacts It is bright tone when Mozarts music evacts such voice and bids suavfty as we'll. It is waermly songful and elastic to every rhythm an5 transition in such . piece as Brahams' dances, It lacks for