THE GRILLER
STRING QUARTET:
Sidney Griller (violin) ; Jack O'Brien (violin); Philip Burton (viola);
Colin Hampton (violoncello)
BERKELEY MASON (pianoforte)
HERBERT HEYNER (baritone)
This Quartet is the last of six Mozart dedicated to Haydn as a mark of the esteem and affection which Mozart always held for the older man, from whom, he declared, he had learned so much. This work, which closes the series of six vigorously enough, begins actually in a spirit of poignant despondency, so much so that attempts have been made to correct what are assumed to have been mistakes in the music. In these days we are less ' clever ' and are prepared to admit that Mozart must have known what he was doing. After the introduction, leading to the first allegro, nothing further is heard of gloom, and the rest of the Quartet reflects sunshine and happiness. HERBERT HEYNER , QUARTET AND
BERKELEY MASON
The Five Mystical Songs were first performed at the Worcester Festival of 1911. They are settings of poems by the sixteenth century divine, George Herbert, one of the most admired poets of his age. Herbert is known as a mystical poet, but his symbolism is for the most part plain, and since Vaughan Williams has caught the very spirit of Herbert's verse a pre-knowledge of the poems enhances one's pleasure in listening to the songs, but is not absolutely necessary. In any case as Vaughan Williams has set them very lightly for a baritone solo and a quartet of voices, there will be no difficulty in hearing the words that are sung, particularly, as in the present instance, they are sung by Herbert Heyner .
Debussy wrote only one string quartet early in his career and though he declared that in his one quartet he had said all he had to say in that form, it was the form which he professed to have exhausted, not the matter of it. The original beauty of his first essay docs not easily reconcile us to a decision that denied us a second. Debussy, although an impressionist, had a true artist's regard for form ; in this respect the quartet is orthodox. Where it is novel, is -in the atmospheric impressionism that contributes so much to the charm of Debussy, in a hidden use of modes, and in a concealed respect for Russian idioms.