The third Razoumoffsky Quartet stands among Beethoven's chamber compositions very much as the C minor Symphony among his orchestral works. To define the qualities in virtue of which these two cognate works appeal so very strongly and directly to the imagination is a matter of great difficulty. They belong to the same period; and, utterly dissimilar as they are in form and detail, they are akin to one another in spirit. Both reveal the composer during that short but golden prime of his artistic life when he had done with technical experiments; and when that austere indifference to mere sensuous beauty of sound, which in course of time his deafness inevitably brought, had not yet begun. Hence these works, though they fall far short of the exaltation, intensity, and rugged grandeur of many third-manner compositions, are more perfectly balanced. They are also entirely free from certain perverse--one may almost say misanthropic--elements which are a stumbling-block in much of Beethoven's music. Such is the felicity of the invention that each new thematic element strikes the ear like a sort of revelation. Nowhere is there an overlong development or anything that bewilders or alienates. The Andante quasi Allegretto of the Quartet reveals the composer in an extremely rare mood. The delicate romance of it recalls the slow movement of the Schumann Quintet, however much more profound Beethoven may be. The harmony is full of dreamlike beauty, and here and there accents of extraordinarily eloquent appeal give that impression (so frequent with Wagner) of music trembling on the verge of articulate speech. A case in point is the recurring G flat in the viola part in bars 8, 9, and 10 after the second repeat. The pizzicato bass is another feature that irresistibly arrests attention. The unparalleled delights of this enchanting work were brought home to the audience by a performance which was not only masterly but was stamped by peculiar felicity. Everything in the marvellous Allegretto was thrown into a kind of delicate relief, and the fugal finale was given with the utmost animation and perfection of detail.
The association of Lady Hallé and Dr. Brodsky in Bach's Concerto for two violins yesterday brought together by far the largest audience ever yet seen at these concerts. The D minor, with two solo parts, is doubtless the finest on the whole of Bach's violin Concertos. The Largo, cast in a mould that the composer used more than once, obviously takes the first place among movements of the kind, in virtue of stately magnificence paired with a certain royal mildness and amiability of expression. Other examples may be deeper or more poignant in feeling, but none other is so richly and perfectly organised in structure or so sweetly benign in expression. The two solo instruments are treated by the composer on a footing of absolute equality, and the manner in which his intentions were yesterday realised by the two masterly performers was above praise. Why (one is likely to ask on hearing such a performance) did a composer, who could make a couple of instruments sing so sweetly and graciously and in a manner so perfectly adapted to their proper genius, very frequently force the singing voice to follow a crabbed line, instrumental rather than vocal in character? In the more vivacious movements preceding and following the Largo nothing could have been finer than the delicate interplay of the two well-matched solo parts, and the whole composition lost little or nothing by the rendering of the accompaniment on a pianoforte instead of the small orchestra for which it was originally scored. As pianoforte accompanist Miss Olga Neruda showed unfailing discretion, and so contributed not a little to the exquisite impression produced by the whole work.