L'AURIAN CLUB CONCERT

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21449, 15 April 1935, Page 6

L'AURIAN CLUB CONCERT

WELL-VARIED PROGRAMME

The Laurian Club is doing a work of inestimable value in giving the public opportunity of hearing selected musical compositions of many periods and various nations. This is undoubtedly the aim of the club, and being so it stands to reason that the works presented must vary considerably in musical importance. The club presented such variety in its programme given on Saturday night, in the Radiant Hall, for the Bach Suite for flute and strings and the Armstrong Gibbs trios were examples of fine writing, satisfying structure, and musical substance, whereas the Haydn quartet and the Arensky variations (even if the technical writing of the latter can bear critical examination) cannot satisfy those who look for aesthetic meaning in musfc.

Taking the two orchestral works, one wonders if the players valued them rightly, for their playing of the clever but shallowly conceived variations of Arensky—onp could almost say irreverent variations when one considers the religious subject of the chosen theme —was decidedly better than their playing of the vastly nobler Bach suite. The suite was only physically played, and was too unfelt to be an expression of that glowingly warm composer Bach. The almost constant forte pesante of the first violins not only handicapped the flautist who performed bravely against such odds, but also gave the audience quite a wrong impression of the musical significance of a work that should have been truly inspiring. It was the three pastoral Songs of Quilter —performed as a real niiartet ensemble of voice, violin, 'cello, and piano, that' reached a standard " of performance that one would Jike for all works performed by this import- | anf club. There was a lilt here, a 1 feeling, too, that was conveyed to the : audience, and though in appearance it I was a singer with trio accompaniment, it was something better—a musical whole in which the four performers were a team. This excellent performance was given by Miss Lillian Hanham, Mrs F. S. Grant, Miss Marjorie Chapman, and Mr Noel Newson Th a same singer, Miss Lillian Hanham, was heard later in two Russian songs, the interpretation of Rachmaninoff's joyous "Spring Waters" by both singer and accompanist being the more satisfying. The other song, Tschaikowsky's Legende, provided a point of interest m this programme by letting the ?U !iear the original form of that theme upon which were built' the Arensky variations (hat followed. But although the singer interpreted this song with appropriate simplicity of treatment, a wrongly felt accompaniment—bearing none of the atmosphere of Russian church music which this composition so fully breathes—gave it faulty colouring. The three remaining works were a quintet, a quartet, and a trio. The quintet was merely a novelty, for it provided opportunity to hear "flute oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon in combination, but it was a work as musically shallow as that of Pierne invariably is.

The Playdn quartet was a typical example of this composer's .music. The playing, which was straight and safe presented the work as timed succession rather than as a phrase-built structure. Some nice contrasts were obtained in the minuet, but even here lack of attention to phrase endinqs robbed the rhythm of points of support and made the music seem hurried.

The trio of Armstrong Gibbs— Yorkshire Dales"—was good, strong, sound refreshing music. His essentially English material was healthy, and his

treatment of it was far more worthy of the name development than that formal tossing, worrying, and re* peating of tunes previously heard in the Haydn work. The firgt movement —for the work was surely a whole even though entitled "three impres--sionto*' —was national, modal, and modern; the second was interestingly canonic, with a playful modification or development of its main melody, and the third movement was boisterously English. Its strong descending chromatic counterpoint on the 'cello produced some marvellous harmonic clashes, this passage being followed by some delightfully Strausslike or Debussy colour-chords on the piano. The players got the spirit of this pleasing work beautifully, and were it for the pleasure of hearing this number only the Laurian Club is to be thanked.