New-York tribune., 1919-01-13
hepHnted from yesterdays late editions
Music
A Notable Composition by the
Conductor of the Boston
Orchestra
By II. f. Krehbiel

The final concert of the Roston Or
chestra's third visit to New York in
TINS season was given in Carnegie Hall
yesterday afternoon. The music and
performance We're varied and change
ful, like Byron's dying dolphin
W., "whom each pang imbues
Mlth a new color as it casps awa,.
Inc last still loveliest."
Somewhat disappointing was the SYM
phony-Schumann's fourth-its trium
phant progress clogged by the rude
and heavy-footed tempo of its jocose
movement. Also it's colors were drab,
but for this the composer, not the
conductor, was to blame. Brighter or
chestral tints, although the theme was
somhre, glowed in NJ Rabaud's "Noc-
turnal Procession" music new to us,
but prismatic hues flashed and
radiated from Ravel's Spanish
Rhapsody" to the confusion al
most OF cur senses. Then, at the last
came Beethoven's third "Leonore" over
ture, which in every respect like
"The setting sun, ard music at the
close,
AS the last taste of Sweets"
was the sweetest last. With music
Ike "Marouf" at the Opera House and
the symphonic poem which we heard
yesterday in the concert room, we must
needs give as large a need Of our ad-
mlration to NJ. Rabaud the composer
as to NJ. Eabaud the CONDUCTOR A
larger need, indeed. for his creative
and more sustained flights than his re-
productive fancy. The "Nocturnal Pro
cession" is a profoundly beautiful piece
of music. With it NJ Rabaud chal-
lenged comparison with Liszt, who in
the first of his two "Episodes from
Lenan's Faust treated the same sub
Ject. The French composer will never
have need to regret the challenge
Even the greatest devotees of List
among our conductors have systemati-
cally passed his "Nachtlicher Zug" by
and contented themselves with it's com
panion, the so-called "Mephisto Walt :"
Yet the episode in Lenans Faust"
fragment holds out beseechng hands
to music. The poem is alternately epic
and dramatical, and the scene
which NJ. Rabaud has delneated
IS in the first category 1t pictures
Faust, Goethe's yearning, inuuiring,
knowledge hungry phi oSopher. but
tainted with the melancholy which
wrecked the poets mind, lost-brood-
ing III the depths of q wood through
which breathe the odors of a Spring
night. Suddenly his attention is ar
rested by Pickering flashes ard the
sounds of song. Illuminated by the
hight OF torches a procession passes by
Whlte-robed chi dren carrying wreaths
OF flowers, black-robcd nuns, venerab
monks bearing cructiXes. 1t is st.
Johns Eve and al chant pous can
tlcle as they move solemnly along the
forest road. They pass out of sight
and hearing, and Faust, crushed by the
mingled voices of dawning life and
approaching death, buries his face in
the name of his horse and weeps the
bltterest tears he has ever wept Here
IS matter for the musical psychologist
and the painter of words as we'll "a
pictures. Very deeply indeed does NJ.
kabaud seem to have penetrated into
the heart of the poem. interpretive
IS al the music. even the song in which
blended in what is apparently the
Grcgorian me ody of "Kyrie ciscn."
II is not alone chant and march of
pious wor hiprers passing through the
night VIII ch we hear. We hear a so the
vocal pulsatiors Of doubt racked soul.
Solemn beauty dwolls in this music
solemn beauty and deep rathos The
audience yesterday hon red itso in
testifying to its appreciation If it
value by round after round Of applause
Ravel's "Ehapsodic cspagno e" wa
not who v move ty-i. e. mo- q
novelty to al who heard t. 1t wa
vet quite fresh from IS compose 5
fame when Mr. Water Damrosch
BROUGHT it forward at q concert
Of the Symphony Society in tn
New Theatre on November 81, 1909 a
week after it had had its first per
foYmance on this side o. the Atlantic
in Chicago. 1t is an amazing study in
crchestration ard also in rhythmica
cation of the spirit of Spanish music
like the familiar examples of Chabrier
Gl.nka, Tschaikofsky, Bizet and Mas
senet.
Their pieces are lpable-things Of
musical flesh and blood and bone and
muscle. Ravcl's rhapsodic suite is G
sort of aural mirage, in which element
of Spanish music, fragmentary, elusive
distorted by a light that never was O.
sea OF and float about in a haze shoi
through with iridcsccnt lights. 1t i.
picture of Spain: "a hot night dis
turbed by GUITAR 1t is q Aoccu cit
fleeting fancy a musical poets droa
Of Spain. Spanish life IN nuce: tt
Spain of the Cid and Of the sums; Of
Moorish glory and modern misery o
dancing and dcving But of little Joy
The Beethoven overture was MARI
lously aged. One could fee the tens
grasp which it held on the conductor
heartstrings and which he passed on t,
the players in the band. No on,
stopped to inquire into the source OF
Is beauty ard power. No one needed
30 = spoke win voice that thrilled