The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-12-01
F@LONZALEYS HEARD
IN FUTURIST MUSIC
Igor Stravinsky's "Threc
Pieces for Quartet" Played
at AcOlian Hall.
REAL HUMOR Is SHOWN

The Fonzalcy Quartet gave the first
concert OF its present season at Aeolian
Hal last evening. The programme com
prised Cesar Franck's quartet in u
major. Hay,ln's in u minor. opus &c. No.
2. and Igor Stravinsky's "Three Pieces
for Quartet" which are brand new. hav-
Ing been written last spring and not yet
published. The composer entrusted the
disclosure Of this artistic message to the
F1onzaley Quartet because Of the devo-
ton OF this little band to progress. II
may also 10 suspected that Mr..
S~travinsky felt that tho high regard In
which the Flonzalcys arc held would
insure a fair hearing for his new thought
music.
These three pieces are very short. &C.
cupylng not moro than eight minutes In
performance. The first movement lasts
about one minute. IL was made known
from tho stage that although the COM
poser desired that his composition. his
first attempt at a quartet. DO accepted
as pure music, he nevertheless had In
mind certain pictures. The first move.
ment paints an oasis In tho desert with
some nomads playing Oriental music
over a drone basa You do not see the
oasis or the nomads. You lear the
music and the drone bass. hich latter Is
made OF the interval called by musicians
q ninth.
The second movement tells of a
church Ger The priest intoires and
the congregation sings the RESPONSE
What the service might have been Is "A
matter Of conjecture. hut the response
sounds like the old Dies he." which
had wandered INTO tho present and been
seriously affected by what bile Nletch-
nixon might have called the ''dLshar-
monies of contemporaneous art The
third movement Ia about a hero who has
to perform public acts 30 d~lrtaSteful to
him tAat they seem to him like Jug
Cling. The acts are laboriously depicted
by three instruments while the first
violin does the juggling in harmonics.
People have been taught to call this
sort of thing futurlst music 1t belongs
quite clearly to the present. for there IL
just ~ much uncoordinatcd thinking now
as there ever was or II evcr likely to be.
n We must not forget all the things
Nietzsrhe told US. The first movement OF
the three was received last evening with
hearty laughter n applause, and II
was vigorously redemanded. People do
not often get a chance to have a laugh
at n quartet concert.
But let u not go astray. This first
movement had genuine humor. II per
haps leaned toward the farcical or tho
VA sTIi pak NV h'1 N''
ployInent of q keenly sentative realism. |
The drone bass out of tune a. Me itself
the nasal ton Contained by playing
close TO the violin bridget Of the melody
the character OF h u n to per-
II Mr.. Stravtnsky chooses to
write miniature burlesques no one should
blame him. albeit II ut n first blush
such a thing would seem to be more In
At a dinner of the Bohemians than
at n serious chamber music concert.
The second movement, that of re-
colorinR. travelled into the native
land of the futurist. the and of strange
and upcouth beings. To say
the music was either ormless or
rurJoseless would I've untrue. To say
hat 1t discharged the high function OF
arr In embodying mans ideas Of the
beautiful would be equally untrue. Pos
the future will take this sort of
music to its bosom. but only after the
present generation of babies has been
brought up In strict secllsion from the
pernicious influences ot Bach. Beethoven
Wagner.
The last scene OF this remarkable
little journey Into the world of freakdom
was the %strangest OF all. The sorrows
of that hero sounded p~erilously like q
parody on the soha OF A~nbneris outside
the prison during the trial Of Rhddames.
and the high harmonic Juggling of the
hero made one think OF the clarinet woes
OF TIL EulcHsbkgeL The whole thing
ingenuity. for there were indie
scribab!e chords which We're 40 dts
among the four Instruments
they actually sounded beautiful.
And this admission is a confession OF the
possibilities of futurist harmony. But
II 1t has any art value why waste It
on impressionistic pifie? There are
things worth saying. Why not say them, |
If this Is a method of utterance?