Music: Lost Concerto

Heralded by an unprecedented hullabaloo of publicity, and greeted by a shower of critical ice water, Schumann’s “lost” Violin Concerto finally had its U. S. premiere last week, when 20-year-old Yehudi Menuhin, former infant prodigy, appearing for his first New York recital in two seasons, played it in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall.

Schumann’s score had actually never been lost at all. The romantic, mentally ailing composer had left the concerto to Violinist Joseph Joachim, whose will consigned it to remain unheard until the 100th anniversary of Schumann’s death (TIME, Aug. 23). (Joachim considered the concerto not up to snuff.) Since 1907 the concerto had rested securely in the archives of Berlin’s Prussian State Library, where its existence had been well known to scholars and had been noted in dozens of bibliographies and musical dictionaries. Last April, German Music Publisher Wilhelm Strecker sent photostats of the original manuscript to Menuhin, asking his opinion of the work. Menuhin replied with an enthusiastic endorsement and a request for performing rights, encouraged Strecker to contest the provisions of Joachim’s will. Meantime in England a remarkable claim was advanced, remarkably supported by Critic Richard Capell (London Daily Telegraph) and internationally famed Musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey. The claim: that the violinist, Jelly D’Aranyi, grandniece of Joachim, had “discovered” the existence of the “lost” concerto while interviewing Schumann’s ghost at a spiritualist seance. Miss D’Aranyi wanted the performing rights for herself, had announced that she would give the world premiere of the concerto in London with the British Broadcasting Co. Orchestra in October. Nazi authorities, seeing the honor of an important premiere slipping from under their noses, decreed that the concerto should be introduced to the world in a broadcast by Violinist Georg Kulen-kampff in Germany. The Nazi fiat was carried out November 26.

At its U. S. premiere last week the much-discussed concerto’s orchestral score was outlined by a piano accompaniment. Judging by the rather sketchy results, critics were inclined to support Joachim’s deprecation of the work. Typical of Schumann were its lyric melody, its cyclical form and the elusive rhythm of its slow movement. Also typical was its occasional awkwardness for the violin (Schumann was a pianist). Very obvious, despite Menuhin’s contentions, was the need of editing. Most of the important violin concertos by great masters have either been edited by, or written in collaboration with, some eminent violinist. But violinists, generally hard-up for first-rate concertos, greeted the new work with hosannas, as did the 3,200 who turned out to hear Menuhin play it.