"MurtuovER. tum Cueaton"—By Ro-aam Rolland. "London: Victor ollance," Price, 30a. ete Rolland regards this "essay"' as "the first state of an as yet very imperfect engraving." It was of his plan to write.a biography of Beethoven, but to limit him-tell "to the exploration of the gress epochs of his creation," the periods the "Eroica" Symphony, the Appassionata" Sonata, and ""Fide-¥o." In a later volume or volumes Rolland hopes to take the full measure of Beethoven, whose mission he attempts to describe in the. following sentences (which give fair notion of M. Rolland's prose method): "To bring to final a complishment the work and the style, the spirit of an epoch, that greater Being of thought—more real than the beings of a day—in which is concentrated the mysterious. and tenacious essence of the soul Even Mr. Ernest Newman's translation is unable to curb the yhetorle of M, Rolland, says chester Guardian." He ether example of it [the author trying to tell us what the scherzo of the Third Symphony means to him): this prodigious Scherzo, whirling and armed," this finale dicated to Joy and Liberty, this festival, these exultant dances and marches, these rivulets of laughter, the rich volutes of these vari tions! In the middle of them Hero veapears—the opening motive the Destiny of life.... But Death also reappears—Death, that is on the ther side of Victory. This time Victory denies it. And. the voice of Death is drowned in the roars Joy, in the rush of the Revolution mob demolishing the leaping over the tombs." Here we have the literary man writing on piusic; it _makes and super ivans' reading nowadays.
'M, Rolland begins an alysis of the Appassionata" Sonata in the following terms: "and now "let us contemplate the Monster!" The opening theme, we are told, is, constituted of tw clements. Two in one: _tw3. Selfs in opposition: a wild Self-force, a trembling Seif.weakness."
M, Rolland cannot tis Yavgo of the third piano sonar Gp. 10 without irrelevant flourishes of thetori for its sul 1 people mea ing itself in its Corypheu royal picture of Melanchol ye reminded of the Eschylean cheruses—Envy (in Saul), Jeal-Cusy (in Hercules") dedicated by Handel to the Great Goddesses the Eumenides." "What in Beethoven's dame has all this ty do with the largo of the D. major Sonata? Music neems to affect the mind of M, Rol-land much ax a ruin by moonlight?
fected the mind of Sir Walter cott—it makes him think of something enrively different, AIL write ing on musie, if it ts to go beyond a bare-bone analysis reeds, to be more or less metaphorical, tie images employed must ft the subject and no other subject Tolland's grandiosities of Hive us the impression that he is writing about Berlioz The value of the book rests m ly on the author's intimate know. Jecge of the—Note-looks. With auch penetration he shows us the Aventures of a theme from. the westatory phase to the consummate ed masterpiece. He puts his knowledge of the Note-boo!
View of his and "secks to. show how a theme or figure will dominate the inner imaginative life for years obsession until "the final turn,
native. form." "Te is a pity accent that ilominats the de Tolland Nev often wastes atte tp of
mine things he is reali senior
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.