Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-02-05
AMUSEMENT
SECTION
CITY CELEBRITIES.
SHINE IN CONCERT
Zeckwer as Composer and Con-
ductor, Sandby as Com
] poser and Player

The concert this week of the Phlladel
rhia Orchestra is almost an intensely
local affair, but like the best of sucl
events It has it's implications around the
musical world. The present writer does
not recall another concert in which two
men closely connected with the progress
OF music in this city appeared each in
two guises at the same concert. In this
case the appearances were successful and
more.
The parts OF the concert which inter.
ested the audience for more purely musi-
cal reasons were Cherubini's rather thin
overture, "Anacreon"; Mozart's Thirty.
ninth Symphony dn IL faD, and the stir.
ring tone-poem, "E'inlandia," of Jean 81.
bellus. One wondered in the contrast be-
tween the first two Of these that 1t should
have been the Cherubini who was spared
for life of 81 years, while Mozart died.
tragically young, at the age of 3j. His
symphony, with its opening adagio and
the well-defined separation Of parts. re-
sembles n suite, very charming light.
almost airy suite, TO which n small orches-
ira might be devoted. 1t has it's quaint
ness and Its seductons and at moments
IL has touches of the greater Mozart but
they are not frequent. Grouping this with
the other number. the "Finlandia," one
finds the polar qualities of Mr.. Stokows<i
He disappointed those epigrammatsts who
claim that he could dramati2e PaleS.
trina and he rejoiced the hearts OF those
TO whom his dramtic quality. precisely in
such things as the "Finlanda," is pre-
cious. 1t is not often that fire and air
are so neatly compaCted.
Mr.. zecSwers symphonic poem. after
Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum," has but
one fault, but that one is not a fault of
music. 1t is a work built with exceeding
care and with much inventiveness, melodi-
caliy and harmonically. 1t must have
shocked many to hear Schoenbergian dis.
sonances from Philadelphia teacher. 1t
hardly seemed likely that one with whom
hands had been shaken and kind human
words spoken should go over to musical
satanics. Somehow, If you didn't feel that
way, it made you think that perhaps
Schoenberg himself wasn't quite such an
outcast. The length of the poem is con-
siderable, but 1t would not be too great
were 1t not that the whole is n series
of successive climaXes, each one elabo-
rated with the same skill, each one of
the same intensity, no one contribut-
ing to the effect of the whole. That is
the fault. Mr.. Zeckwer made pitiless de-
mands on the nervous abilities of his audi
ence at the very time when he should have
been boarding up everything. He pleased
with his atmospheric effects with his gal
lantry and his sense of the picturesque.
But human flesh could not bear the con-
tInuous onslaughts of climax.
Mr. Sandby's work was reviewed in
some detail when he played 1t with piano.
With the orchestra it reveals itself still the
same, work of high intelligence and deep
feeling, full of attraction, spoiled by it's
perfection as a work for the cello. Mr..
Sandby has been cultivating orchids in a
garden meant for all manner Of fair fruit.
The second theme of his first movement is
perhaps the most appealing, but the end
of the adagio is most effective, since it is
a desperately difficult piece of work. His
playing of this, clean and beautiful in
every strained note was marvellous. The
orchestration is generous and alert the
treatment of the woodwind being par
good. Nor is the rhythmic beat
of the finale to be neglected. Yet. for so
good work, the feeling of virtuosity is
misfortune. G.VS