The concert began with Mozart's G Minor
Symphony. We liked this fairly well, especially the last movement,
but we found all the movements too long and, speaking for myself, if
I had a tame orchestra for which I might write programmes, I should
probably put it down once or twice again, not from any spontaneous
wish to hear more of it but as a matter of duty that I might judge it
with fuller comprehension--still, if each movement had been half as
long I should probably have felt cordially enough towards it, except
of course in so far as that the spirit of the music is alien to that
of the early Italian school with which alone I am in genuine sympathy
and of which Handel is the climax.
Then came a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven and an air
with a good deal of "Che faro" in it. I do not mind this, and if it
had been "Che faro" absolutely I should, I daresay, have liked it
better. I never want to hear it again and my orchestra should never
play it.
Beethoven's Concerto for violin and orchestra (op. 61) which followed
was longer and more tedious still. I have not a single good word for
it. If the subject of the last movement was the tune of one of
Arthur Robert's comic songs, or of any music-hall song, it would do
very nicely and I daresay we should often hum it. I do not mean at
the opening of the movement but about half way through, where the
character is just that of a common music-hall song and, so far, good.
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