He is an artist in the matter of programmes. He builds them as a chef builds up an elaborate banquet, by the blending of many flavours and essences, each item a subtle, unmarked progression on its predecessor. He is very fond of his Russians, and his readings of Tchaikowsky seem to me the most beautiful work he does. I do not love Tchaikowsky, but he draws me by, I suppose, the attraction of repulsion. The muse who guides the dreamings of the Russian artist is a sombre and heavy-lidded lady, but most sombre, I think, when she moves in the brain of the musician. Then she wears the glooms and sables of the hypochondriac. She does not "nerve us with incessant affirmations." Rather, she enervates us with incessant dubitations. It is more than a relief to leave the crowded Promenade, after a Tchaikowsky symphony, to stroll in the dusky glitter of Langham Place, and return to listen the clear, cool tones of Mozart, as sparkling and as gracious as a May morning! Next to Tchaikowsky, Sir Henry gives us much of Wagner and Beethoven and Mendelssohn. I can never understand why Mendelssohn is played nowadays. His music always seems to me to be so provincial and gentlemanly and underbred as to remind one of a county ball. I am sure he always composed in a frock-coat, silk hat, and lavender gloves. When he is being played, many of us have to rush away and saunter in the foyer.
Usually the programme contains some examples of modern French music (a delicate horror by Ravel, perhaps) and of the early Italians. You will get something sweet and suave and restful by Palestrina or Handel, and conclude, perhaps, with a tempest of Berlioz.
During the season of the Promenades, there are also excellent concerts going on in the lost districts of London. There is, to begin with, the Grand Opera season at the Old Vic. in Waterloo Road, where you can get a box for one-and-sixpence, and a seat in the gallery for twopence. The orchestra is good, and the singers are satisfactory. The operas include "Daughter of the Regiment," and run through Verdi and some of Wagner to Mascagni and Charpentier. The audience is mostly drawn from the surrounding streets, the New Cut and Lower Marsh. It wears its working clothes, and it smokes cut Cavendish; but there is not a whisper from the first bar of the overture to the curtain. The chorus is drawn from the local clubs, and a very live and intelligent chorus it is. Then there are the Saturday evening concerts at the People's Palace in Whitechapel, at the Surrey Masonic Hall, in Camberwell, at Cambridge House, and at Vincent Square. In each case the programme is distinctly classical. It is only popular in the sense that the prices are small and the performers' services are honorary. Many a time have I attended one of these concerts, because I knew I should hear there some old, but obscure, classic that I should never be likely to hear at any of the West End concert-halls.