" Still, on the
whole the Variations arrided us vastly.
It was a curious but exhilarating experience to hear the Bohemians, the
playboys of Central Europe, interpreted in the roast-beef-and-plum-pudding
style of the Philharmonic at its beefiest and plummiest. Dabcik survived
the treatment fairly well, but poor Ploffskin was simply stodged under.
But they were in the same boat with RICHARD the Elder, whose Venusberg
music was given with all the orgiastic exuberance of a Temperance Band
at a Sunday-School Treat, recalling the sarcastic jape of old HANS
RICHTER during the rehearsal of the same work: "You play it like
teetotalers--which you are not." Yet the orchestra were lavish of
violent sonority where it was not required; the well-meaning but
unfortunate Mr. Orlo Jimson, who essayed the "Smithy Songs" from
_Siegfried_, being submerged in a very Niagara of noise. WAGNER'S
scoring no doubt is "a bit thick," but then he devised a special
"spelunk" (as BACON says) for his orchestra to lurk in, and there is no
cavernous accommodation at the Queen's Hall.
II.
Though fashion considers September as an unpropitious time for the
production of novelties, the scheme arranged for the patrons of the
Philharmonic Concert last night, under the direction of Sir Henry
Peacham, was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently
respectable dimensions.
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