HARMONIC SOCIETY’S CONCERTS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21761, 18 April 1936, Page 19

HARMONIC SOCIETY’S CONCERTS

PROGRAMME FOR NEXT WEEK British music—including works by such popularly known composers as Vaughan Williams and Coleridge Taylor, as well as notable new compositions by Dr. G. Dyson and Alec Rowley, which are being performed for the first lime in New Zealand —has been chosen for the programme of the Christchurch Harmonic Society at its concerts at the Civic Theatre on Wednesday and Thursday next. Moods of sentiment, pastoral, fantasy, and vivid description have all been provided for, and the quality of the singing of the society's choir, which has already proved its ability in handling the difficulties of such works as Constant Lambert’s very modern “Rio Grande.” is a guarantee that the concerts will be memorable and exciting. The programme will begin with Coleridge Taylor’s part-song "The Lee Shore,” which will be followed by the lilt and grace of Vaughan Williams’s “Falstaff and the Fairies,” from the opera “Sir John in Love,” and by Sir Hugh Roberton’s setting of “Eriskay Love Lilt.” After these items by the choir, Hebridean songs to the Celtic harp will be sung by Miss Russell Fergusson, whose recitals in London were highly praised by leading English critics. The first half of the programme will conclude with the choir singing Alec Rowley’s “The River,” a pastoral work describing in eight passages the growth of a river on .its way to the sea.

The chief work of the evening, Dr. Dyson's 'The Blacksmiths," will begin the second half of the programme. This composition makes considerable demands on the choir, for it achieves unusual tonal and rhythmic effects in its interpretation of a vividly descriptive Old English poem. This will be followed by piano solos by the talented Miss Jean McLeod, a part song for women's voices, and by a number by the Dulcet Quartet of women members of the choir. After another group of Hebridean songs by Miss Russell Fergusson the programme will end with the choir's pinging of Sir Hugh Roberton's setting of the Dorsetshire ballad, "King Arthur."