1t would have cleared the air in rore than one sense had there been a literal visitation of Saint-Saen's "Deluge" on Sunday afternoon at the Lyceum. There was no let-up, however, and orchestra and audience sweltered valiantly in the densely tropical atmosphere. The excessive heating of this theatre has been disapproved previously, but that the caprices of garrulous radiators should wreck such quiet beauty of the prelude to "Lo Deluge" is outrageous. Mr, Foa gave his usual finished performance, supported by all strings in an exemplary manner.
Sibelius's "Swan of Tuonela" comes from that vast storehouse of Finnish legend, the Kalevala, which is also responsible for a number of other symphonic works in the best Sibelian manner, There is, in this rich and brooding music, all his intense love of things elemental and the bleak expanses of Finland, and although the "Swan" is an intimate outpouring, it ig offered objectively and has no connection with the processes which have led composers of lesser stature to wallow luxuriously and subjectively in their own personal discordant impacts with a relentless world.
Although the various departments of the orchestra played their individual parts well, the slowness of the tempo taken precluded that continuity this work demands; indeed, the resultant phrases on the English horn were stretched to lengths in which the poor Swan nearly died of respiratory failure before being counted out at the appointed time by the timpani. Incidentally, wouldn't it have been better acoustically if the soloist had played from his normal position? 3 The game of pulling plums out of symphonic pies by playing isolated excerpts might be condemned, exception exists in the case of the slow movements of Mahler's Second io the beds of those poor clean-limbed youngsters in the military hospitals, as they struggle and choke in their death agonies. Yes, lock them up with the pitiful jibbering shell-shock cases. Let them fully realize what it means for our youth to be the tools of military and political non-Christian fanatics. No, dear Christian, I am afraid we have ourselves to blame: lack of Christian unity and leadership is responsible for this present frenzy of war and destruction of Christians.
The stability of peace for the world still lies in our hands, but what hope is there when we continue to allow our Christian youth to be set one against the other by non-Christian elements. A "League of Christians" might at least prevent Christian slaying Christian, and if there must be war, let us die with grandeur and honour for Christian principles, instead of perishing in a cesspool of savage iniquity, for non-Christian fanatics and armament ghouls.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.