N.Z. ARTIST

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21050, 29 December 1933, Page 2

N.Z. ARTIST

RETURNING TO THE DOMINION MR SYDNEY" THOMPSON (riuu ouii own coftßJMi'u.NXjF.xr., LONDON, November 24. Mr and Mrs Sydney L. Thompson have booked for New Zealand by the Mongolia, leaving London on December 1. At Sydney they will connect with the Wanganella tor Wellington, en route for Christchurch, where they expect to reside for several year.-. They will be accompanied by'their two daughters, who have received thir education up to now at the Cour St. Marthe, Gras.se. but who will continue their studies in New Zealand. Their son, Sydney Jan, has gone on from Mill Hill School to Reading University, to work for his B.Sc. in agriculture. He has always spent his holidays in France, either at Concarneau or at Grasse, where his parents have had their summer and winter homes respectively. Mr Thompson is sure to receive a warm welcome 'from lovers of art in New Zealand. He is taking with him a considerable number of sketches, and he will probably hold some exhibitions in the chief centres. Last summer was a particularly busy one for him because, when French people heard that he was leaving them, they wanted more of his pictures. Also, the fact that he was a portrait painter as well as a painter of scenery became known, and commissions were the sequel. Asked it there were any particular trend in art in France at the moment, Mr Thompson replied that it was verv difficult to say, bat there seems to be a feeling that the ultra-modern stvle has had its day. A CULTURED PIANIST MISS VERA MOOKL fraOM OUR OWK COKRRSPONDENt.) LONDON. November 24. j At the Wigmore Hall, on November 16, Miss Vera Moore gave another of her interesting— an:) almost too rarepianoforte recitals in London. At. the moment she is busily engaged deputising at the Royal Academy of Music J br , oth . Gr - Mr Frederick Moore, who is out of England examining for i ssoclated of the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity CoJMiss Moore's quiet style is always a delight, and it is her gift to be able to impart so helpfully to her audience that meaning which she finds in the ™ r , ks , she 1S Playing. She always presents a well-thought-out prolamine, and one of considerable Thls ,! ,mu she P ]a yed Bach (Totcato in D major), Beethoven Rrnh lr< "at. major. Op. 7), and ■ordhms (Cappnccio, Intermezzo, variations on an original theme, and a Rhapsody); also Rameau's Prelude and oarabande, and Couperin's "Soeur Monique" and "Les Barricades Mysterzeuses." She had an excellent audience and a very appreciative one, and there have followed some gratifying notices. "The Times" comments: "Miss Vera Moore is a pianist who can make her points with all necessary emphasis without underlining them. Her playing is like the conversation of a person with a well-stored and cultivated nund Beethoven's early Sonata in E flat,, for all its polish and refinement, retained its youthful impulsiveness. In a group of Brahms's smaller pieces, the tone was always adequate in power and beautiful in quality; there was caprice but not capaciousness in her playing of a Capriccio, musical insight in she variations on an original theme, ana lyrical feeling in them all." The "Morning Post' 1 representative discovered style in her playing, and continues: "It is not in the technique of brilliant dexterous display that this pianist excels, although she can command at will a sufficient fluency in performance. This she did in the great D Major Toccato by Bach, and gave a thoroughly vital rendering. Her chief asset is her ability to carry a work through from beginning to end as one indivisible, concrete whole. In the shorter pieces by Rameau and Couperin this valuable gift was put to effective use, and hardly less so in the early Beethoven Sonata in E flat major."