Brahms-Orgies

The composer Brahms was a prodiguous, forbidding fellow. His huge Teutonic whiskers used to sweep over his whole waistcoat as he remarked: "For the shallow delights of matrimony and opera I have no courage." This spirit runs through his music, which makes no compromises with the sugary "lollypop-school." There are but few exceptions to this: His Hungarian Dances are played, with excessive abandon, by every vaudeville violinist and every cafe-orchestra in Paris, and his Wiegenlied is listed in the catalog of every gramo-phone-record mannfacturer. But the bulk of Brahms remains "musicians' music." This is particularly true of his chamber music, classical forms to be executed by small combinations of stringed instruments and piano. Four or five solemn-visaged performers huddle their chairs into a little group in the centre of a platform and discourse with sweetness and subtlety--without the dramatic, vulgar crash of percussion units, without the resounding blare of brazen-throated trumpets and trombones. Such music demands a cult--and a temple.

And so it was peculiarly fitting that a Brahms chamber-music cycle, a veritable Brahmsi-orgy, spread out over no less than two months, should have been celebrated this Summer at the "Temple of Chamber Music" at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Mass. Eight concerts were heard on successive Sunday afternoons, the last taking place on Aug. 31. The event was made possible by the financial devotion of Mrs. F. S. Coolidge, a real patroness, and by the artistic devotion of Maestro Willem Willeke, a real musician.

The renditions themselves were entrusted to the capable hands of the Elshuco Trio (founded by Mrs. Coolidge) and the Festival Quartet of South Mountain. The fare consisted exclusively of units which read as follows on the program: "Quintet in G Major (for two violins, two violas and 'cello) Opus 111: Allegro non troppo, Adagio, Un poco allegretto, Vivace ma non troppo presto." Scant nourishment for program-music fans, who demand information in print as to the doings of wood-nymphs, animals, ships at sea, Oriental ladies, babies, magicians, policemen and princesses whose doings, we are so often told, are portrayed by the gyrations of flutes and bassoons and the contortions of the conductor.

Nevertheless, the audiences at Pittsfield were large and enthusiastic (after their fashion) throughout the festival. They listened with intense and breathless concentration to the gradual development of embryo themes into tall, symmetrical skyscrapers of tone. When we add to this the fact that, in "popular" outdoor concerts this Summer, the concertos of Bach, the overtures of Beethoven and the symphonies of Brahms were among the best liked numbers, we can find ample refutation of the contentions of those deadheads who complain that U. S. Jazzmania is undermining the respect always due to the great triumvirate--"the three B's" of music.