I like the way Kullak marks the first B flat octave. It
is a pregnant beginning. The second bar I have never heard from
any pianist save Rubinstein given with the proper crescendo. No
one else seems to get it explosive enough within the walls of one
bar. It is a true Rossin-ian crescendo. And in what a wild
country we are landed when the F sharp minor is crashed out!
Stormy chromatic double notes, chords of the sixth, rush on with
incredible fury, and the scherzo ends on the very apex of
passion. A Trio in G flat is the song of songs, its swaying
rhythms and phrase-echoings investing a melody at once sensuous
and chaste. The second part and the return to the scherzo are
proofs of the composer's sense of balance and knowledge of the
mysteries of anticipation. The closest parallelisms are
noticeable, the technique so admirable that the scherzo floats in
mid-air--Flaubert's ideal of a miraculous style.
And then follows that deadly Marche Funebre! Ernest Newman, in
his remarkable "Study of Wagner," speaks of the fundamental
difference between the two orders of imagination, as exemplified
by Beethoven and Chopin on the one side, Wagner on the other.
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