With' one's mind spinning to the whirl of the Wieniawski dance one left the Town Hall on Tuesday with the feeling that both violinist and accompanist had played more divinely than ever. They have been taking a holiday, one hears, in Peking, and the keen air of the north had renewed their youth like eagles. For both it was "ther night out.''? One had the sensation that they were enjoying themselves immensely. And so it was that their audience enjoyed them yet more if possible than on their first visit. One brackets Mischa Elman and M. Loesser thus together, because it 's quite impossible to think of them apart, and Mischa Elman is far too fine an artist not to recognize how greatly the work of his companion contributes to the sum total of music or to begrudge the like recognition by others. One does not know how.M. Loesser might do as soloist, but in acccompanying he is quite beyond praise. His fine technique and exquisite touch are handmaids to a rare power of expression and all together are controlled by a flawless sense! of what. the music requires.
To take one's special favourites in last night's programme, one woul', first of all, like to hear the whole Mendelssohn concerto again. There are passages in it lovely with all the flowers of summer and tender with the radiance of the full moon; and into these presently there burst a thousand little dancing elves, twining and turning in innumerable graczfal figures Had Mischa Elman set himself to a wean us all from jazz? For sarely he was in a dancing mood. Here was another picture—of highly artificial and beflowered dames and cavaliers bowing and courtseying to the minuet of Haydn—a piece, by the way, that any schoolgirl might play, but only a master interpret. And then there was more dancing in Moszowski's "Guitarre," which was full of the strangest surprises and of images not to be put into words. And that we might not forget his! ch: special power, he included one of Chopin's Nocturnes, and the whole audience became as in the vision of the prophet of old—"falling into a trance yet having his eyes open. When Mischa Elman plays the Nocturnes one knows why they are so called.
Tu certain passages one realized! what a master of technique he is. There is one in particular in the "Légende"—a broken chord ending ona high note, very difficult. to manage and which very few violinists can make sound properly balanced.
With Mischa Elman it; falls into place in perfect proportion. And his herronics in the Buhay are a thing to dream of.
Also one had space to marvel at the tone of his violin and to think a little of old Stradivarius in his airy workshop at the top of a house swarming with his children,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.