It seems strange that there should exist any difference of opinion as to the value of this work. The American critic Huneker says:

'This is the noblest Nocturne of them all. Biggest in conception, it seems a miniature music drama.'

Kullak (quoted by Mr. Jonson) says:

The design and poetic contents of this Nocturne make it the most important one that Chopin created; the chief subject is a masterly expression of a great powerful grief, for instance at a grave misfortune occurring to one's beloved fatherland. Upon such an occasion and in such a mood, it is but a step to self-sacrificing deeds. The second subject makes upon me an impression as if heroic men had banded themselves together and solemnly went forth to the holy war to conquer or die for their native land.

In correspondence with the character of a grand heroic march, the harmonic masses finally tower aloft in imposing splendour and majesty.' The late Professor Niecks, whose magnificent two-volume Life of Chopin (Novello, 16s.) is our standard work on the subject, says (Vol. II, page 265):

'The two Nocturnes (in C minor and C sharp minor) which form Op. 48 are not of the number of those that occupy foremost places amongst their companions. Still, they need not be despised. The melody of the C minor portion of the first is very expressive, and the second has in the C sharp minor portion the peculiar Chopinesque flebile dolcezza.

'In playing these nocturnes there occurred to me a remark of Schumann's, made when he reviewed some nocturnes by Count Wielhorski. He said, on that occasion, that the quicker middle movements which Chopin frequently introduces into his nocturnes are often weaker than his first conceptions, meaning the first portions of the nocturnes. Now although the middle parts in the present instances are, on the contrary, slower movements, yet the judgment holds good; at least with respect to the first nocturne, the middle part of which has nothing to recommend it but the effective use of a full and sonorous instrumentation, if I may use this word in speaking of one instrument.'

It may be added that Niecks speaks of the Chopin Nocturnes in general as 'dulcet, effeminate compositions', which some of them do certainly tend to become when played with exaggerated feeling.

The following extract from an estimate of Chopin's influence upon piano composition, by Mr. Tobias Matthay

(Musical Times, March, 1910), is of interest as bearing upon the style of this Nocturne :

'What we have to thank him most for is the deep poetic feeling underlying all his music. Except in his very earliest works we never find him writing a passage for the mere sound of it, or the mere playing of it. However brilliant the rush of sounds, they are always written as a direct and inevitable expression of his mood or feeling. It is because he never swerved from this, his ever-present purpose to express feeling through the musically-beautiful, that he became and has remained the greatest pianoforte writer, and that his music will forever glorify our instrument.'

If following this piece with the score, note that, in order to bring it within the compass of a Gramophone Record, it has been (skilfully) 'cut' in two places. The omitted passages are Bars 31-8 and Bars 55-66-in all twenty bars out of the seventy-seven of the piece.

Chopin. Etude.

This is a true 'study', its technical object being the cultivation of the playing of double notes in the right hand; from beginning to end that hand is active in the rapid drawing of parallel lines, a third apart. Sometimes the left hand supplies a mere accompaniment to this; at other times it treats a definite motif of its own---usually a snatch of melody thickened with chords.

Huneker praises the piece as follows:

'In piano literature no more remarkable merging of matter and manner exists. The end justifies the means, and the means employed by the composer are beautiful. There is no other word to describe the style and architectonics of this noble study.'

which, though perhaps excessive, is, at any rate, less irritating than the typically Hunekerian phraseology in the description of the set of twelve, which make up the Opus 25, from which this one is taken :

Astounding, canorous, enchanting, alembicated and dramatic, the Chopin studies are exemplary essays in emotion and manner,'

24

Cyril Scott. Danse Nègre.

This light-handed piece is a part of the composer's Opus 58, the other members of this opus being the Three Little Waltzes and the Two Alpine Sketches (published by Elkin).

Why Danse Nègre, instead of Negro Dance, I do not know; many of our composers seem to have an affection, or affectation, for French titles for their lighter pieces (compare Elgar's use of Salut d'amour, instead of Love's Greeting). Cyril Scott has another Danse Nègre in his Tallahassee Suite for Violin and Piano, so one suspects that he thinks 'Negro Dance' too vulgar a title for the drawing room, a view which his friend and admirer Percy Grainger, with his Molly on the Shore and Handel in the Strand, would hardly share.

This, however, is all by the way, and the observation is made here merely in order to fill out a paragraph about a piece of which nothing calls to be said-except perhaps this Don't play it too much, or, pleasant as it is, it will pall. It is included in this book because it happens to be given in with two Chopin pieces, and it is worth its place, as occupying half of one side of a record, and as illustrating one of the lighter moods of a popular contemporary composer of our own country.

Large H.M.V. Black Record. D. 84. 6s. 6d.

Printed Music. Editions of Chopin abound. The Cyril Scott piece is published by Messrs. Elkin. 2s.

RECORDS Nos. 6, 7 and 8

Violin and Pianoforte. Sonata in D minor, Op. 108

CATTERALL AND MURDOCH

First Movement (Allegro-Quick).

The Sonata opens very finely, with its best Movement, the Opening Subject of which is deeply felt and is carried forward in a long continuous Violin line against an effective Piano background. Both instruments are here supplied with material supremely adapted to their genius. Note especially the Violin part, as a piece of curvilinear drawing, all growing out of its opening in the most natural and organic way:

This is the First Subject of the Movement; it has a

syncopated accompaniment. The Second Subject, by and by, enters, at first in PIANO alone:

espress.

Ped.

Of this Mr. Fuller-Maitland remarks:

'One of its peculiarities is the sforzando note in an unexpected part of the bar, a passage to which very few players, by the way, know how to give the exact value, some of them avoiding the emphasis altogether, and some overdoing it. The effect is at its best if the smallest imaginable break be made after it, in fact if more attention be paid to the staccato mark than to the sf.' '1

This sforzando effect (i.e., the effect of an accent upon the chord marked sf) occurs three times in the opening few bars of the Subject, and is, as Mr. Fuller-Maitland suggests, one of its features. The listener may judge for himself into which of the two faults mentioned (if either) the pianist here and the violinist a moment later have fallen.

After a time the composer embarks upon a remarkable passage entirely built upon a 'Pedal', that is a stationary note (in this case A-the Dominant) in the bass; the matter superposed is all derived from the First Subject, and this is technically the Development of the Movement. There are nearly fifty bars of this 'Dominant Pedal' passage. In Brahms' German Requiem a whole chorus is constructed upon a Pedal; here the whole middle portion, or Development, of a Movement in 'Sonata Form' is so constituted--both instances being, at the time of their composition, unique.

The turn of the Record occurs as this Development portion ends, and we enter upon the Recapitulation, which, as usual, gives us the two Subjects (in the Enunciation, or

1 Brahms (Methuen, 1911. IOS. 6d.).