Sonate pour alto et piano en un mouvement by Jacques de MenasceReview by: Lawrence MortonNotes, Second Series, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Mar., 1957), pp. 200-201Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/891694 .

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human mystery, more subtle and more true than all the Teutonic vehemence we have come to think of as the right and true expression of emotion.

Helmut Brautigam: Kleine Musik fiir Streicher (1935) fiir 2 Violinen, Viola (Violin e III), und Violoncello. (Collegium musicae novae, 14.) Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel; U. S. A.: Associated Music Pub? lishers, New York, 1955. [Score, 12 p.; $3.75; set of parts, $3.75]

Brautigam's Kleine Musik is a pleas- ant bit of good old-fashioned (1935) Hindemithian Gebrauchsmusik for either solo or group strings. Its fifteen minutes of sharp rhythms, clear melodic contours, and precise forms within a not too de- manding chromatic technique make it eminently practicable for a competent and progressive high school or college orchestra where it would serve the addi- tional function of acquainting players and audience with an easy-to-take con? temporary idiom.

Matyas Seiber: Quartetto N. 1 per archi. Milano: Suvini Zerboni; U. S. A.: Associated Music Pub? lishers, New York, 1956. [Score, 31 p.; $2.25]

The first quartet of Matyas Seiber, composed in 1924, has just received a belated publication. It is a brief work, sixteen to seventeen minutes long, and a youthful one. Dating from Seiber's nine- teenth year, it reveals especially his teacher Kodaly's influence in its national- ist traits embedded within an idiom which never ventures as far as the com? plete rethinking of musical materials that Bartok's achieved. Much is made of rather mild, conventional Hungarian tunes and rhythms in an over-all style which owes most to Beethoven's Opus 59?in itself no mean accomplishment for a youth of nineteen. The forms are concise and familiar, the melodic material dia? tonic with occasional Hungarian modality and a spicing-up by chains of seconds, major sevenths, and minor ninths. Its greatest youthful weakness is its over- reliance on the facile solution of sequences, especially in the outer, rapid

movements. Technically, it is only moderately difficult, certainly less so than its prototypes of 1806, and would be an exciting addition to the repertoire of a good semi-professional ensemble.

Robert Erich Wolf

Alessandro Stradella: Sinfonia a tre fiir zwei Violinem (Oboen) und Basso continuo (Klavier, Cembalo), Violon? cello und Kontrabass ad lib. Hrsg. von Walter Kolneder. (Antiqua, eine Sammlung alter Musik; Partitur & Stimmen, Ed. Schott, 4657.) Mainz: B. Schott's Sohne; U. S. A.: Asso? ciated Music Publishers, New York, 1956. [Score, 7 p., & parts; $2.00]

The publication of this straightforward and rather slight four-movement trio- sonata is a welcome reminder of the con- siderable reputation as a violinist and composer of instrumental music which Alessandro Stradella enjoyed during his lifetime. The reputation is generally for- gotten by present day musicians who know him only as a composer of vocal music or. all too often, only as a name surrounded by gaudy biographical legends. This Sinfonia is not an im? portant masterwork, but it is vigorous and dignified music that should delight students and domestic chamber music players.

Herbert Livingston

Jacques de Menasce: Sonate pour alto et piano en un mouvement. Paris: Durand; U. S. A.: Elkan- Vogel, Philadelphia, 1956. [Score, 17 p;. $2.40]

Menasce's Sonata, composed in 1955, is an intimate 17-page work in a single movement of five sections: Adagio, Allegro, Fugato, Allegro, and Adagio. The fourth and fifth sections are varied re- capitulations of the second and first. What first meets the eye are the quartal harmonies, consistently in the pattern of the opening piano chord (reading from bottom up) : Db, Gb, C in the left hand and Fb, Bbb, Eb in the right. When the viola enters, it assumes responsibility for the third voice of the chord, and a melisma around this tone creates a melodic fragment that beeomes the prin-

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cipal thematic element throughout the Sonata, with fresh rhythmic anatomies for the Allegro and Fugato. The work is thus very tightly organized and uni- fied, a convincing demonstration of the composer's craft and economy.

Expressively the Sonata is sweet, suave, genteel. Its manners are those of the salon, and it will not interfere with or resent polite conversation in the back- ground. There is some wit in it, but it is not brilliant. It is very French, will doubtless succeed with audiences which like modern music that is not too aggres- sive or challenging to their comforts. Instrumentalists of like persuasion should enjoy playing it, for it will make them sound well without working too hard.

Stefan Wolpe: Sonata for Violin and Piano. New York: McGinnis & Marx, 1955. [Score, 71 p., and part, 20 p.; $5.00]

Wolpe's Sonata, composed in 1949, is a large-scale, 71-page work in four move? ments: Un poco allegro, Andante appas- sionato, Lento?Scherzo (Vivo)?Lento, and Allegro deciso. A first glance at the score reveals some knotty problems for the performers. Depending on their orientation, they will be delighted or appalled by observing that bar lines in the two instrumental parts, and even in the two staves of the piano part itself, do not always coincide; that measures are of varying length; that there are (of course) no time signatures; that changes

of tempo are very frequent (27 metro- nome indications in the first movement, for instance). A special set of nuances has been invented in order to indicate such things as "a weak beat," "a strong beat," " a focal point (intermediary or final) within the structure of units the anatomy of which is not otherwise in evi- dence," "a unit of lesser weight or one evolving towards a focal point," "a unit of greater weight or its definitive realiza- tion," and so on. In short, the notation is elaborate, indicative of some private system of phrase construction, and cer? tain to generate during rehearsal as much conversation (if not argument) as playing.

Few if any ears are likely to detect what the eye perceives. Ears will find the music vigorously "modern," dissonant (seconds, sevenths, and ninths are preva- lent), predominantly polyphonic (with harmonic groupings present as elements of a single contrapuntal line), motivic in the "constructed" passages, and non- thematic in the "freely expressive" ones. Obviously this is the work of a composer who is earnest, thoughtful, intensely emo- tional, and terribly sincere. What a mis- fortune for me it is, therefore, that I find myself totally unconvinced by Wolpe's Sonata, totally unmoved, and totally mystified by an art that purposely obscures portions of its anatomy, care- fully labels them as obscure, and then ex- pects the listener to find their meanings.

Lawrence Morton

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

Joseph Haydn: Concerto in G Major for Piano and Orchestra. Piano re- duction by Robert Veyron-Lacroix. New York: International Music Co., 1954. [2-piano score, 32 p.; $1.50] G. B. Martini: Concerto in do mag- giore per archi e cembalo. Milano: Suvini Zerboni; U. S. A.: Associated Music Publishers, New York, 1956. [Score, 19 p.; $2.50]

These two mid-18th century composi? tions are interesting way-stations in the development of the classical keyboard concerto.

The Haydn Concerto, aptly described by the editor as "a divertimento for piano

with obbligato accompaniment," was written sometime before 1765. It is a three-movement work. A short, florid Adagio, the most attractive section of the work, is framed by a bland Allegro moderato and a final Presto in 3/8 time resembling the typical Italian overture fmale of the period. This is not im? portant Haydn, but it is an interesting example of its genre. Since the technical demands are very modest the Concerto makes good Hausmusik.

The Martini Concerto, written in 1750 according to the autograph manuscript in Bologna, is a more ambitious work. It is part of the main stream from the

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