by. ALBERT SAMMONS
ERNEST Lush (Pianoforte)
GRIEG'S feet were first set on the path of music by his friend Ole Bull, the Violinist, to whose influence we owe a good many exceedingly effective Violin pieces that Grieg wrote. He attempted few large-scale works, and when he used the Sonata scheme, one finds, usually, that he has simply written three very effective and quite simply constructed pieces, very charming, but not essentially built up into one homogeneous work. He is almost always at his best in short lyrical pieces. This Sonata aims, in its First Movement, at greater intensity of feeling than most of his other works.
HEJRE, Kati! (Hello, Katie !) is one of a series of Scenes from the Czardas, the national dances of Hungary. ' Czardas ' originally meant noisy revelry, and it is significant that it is derived from a word that means ' ale-house ' !
The dances are generally divided into sections, a slow portion, the Lassan, being followed by one or more quick measures, called Friszkas. Hejre, Kati ! is constructed after this fashion.
Hubay (born 1858) has taught a great many of the best-known violinists-Szigeti, von Vecsey, and our own Jelly d'Aranyi among others. He is Director of the Royal High School for Music at Budapest.