The Master
HEARD last week Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 2, played by Maurice Clare, violin, and Frederick Page, piano. What an extraordinary work! Less difficult than the Violin Concerto and more lyrical than any work I have yet listened to, I found to my surprise that the Bartok world is now, for me, navigable territory, It was superbly played by the two artists; every bar showed clear evidence of the most devoted musicianship. There are passages in the first movement of an unspeakable anguish and isolation; a solitary man moves slowly through a frozen landscape: no blade of grass distracts him, no human contact can touch him, He does not beat his breast nor cry aloud to the heavens; bleakness is his lot, and he accepts it. A terrifying prospect. The second movement with its pizzicato opening was warmer, outlining the steps of some grave, spiky dance, ang #he last movement again took us #¥f*a new dimension. The violin made édd capers like a ghostly harmonica, through long threadlike spools of sound; it reminded me of the strange, fine, remote world of Paul (continued on next page)
‘(continued from previous page) Klee’s paintings, and though remote, never inhuman. I hope that this magnificent work will be played again and again.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19560329.2.43.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 20
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210The Master New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 20
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