RHAPSODY FOR BRASS BAND

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 3

RHAPSODY FOR BRASS BAND

Composition By Auckland Man

“The Press” Special Service

WELLINGTON, April 19. The presentation of the first published scores of the Auckland composer Llewelyn Jones’s “Maori Rhapsody” to the New Zealand Brass Bands’ Association has ended a 15-year fight by the composer to have his composition generally performed.

The first copy of the published scores was brought to New Zealand recently by Mr S. T. Woodbridge, of the Australasian Performing Right Association. It was presented to the composer, who, in turn, presented it to Mr N. G. Gpffin, of the Brass Bands Association.

It is the first major New Zealand work to be published with the assistance of A.P.R.A., whose Wellington representative (Mr A. E. Rolfe) expects that within the next few years the “Maori Rhapsody” will become known the world over. Director’s Comment

Mr Jones, in an effort to bring his rhapsody before the public, first showed the score to Mr H. Gladstone Hill in 1942. when Mr Gladstone Hill was director of the R.N.Z.A.F. Band.

Mr Hill, after studying it said he did not feel that Mr Jones then possessed a sufficient knowledge of military band technique for a work of this magnitude, and returned it to the composer with these comments. In a letter to Mr Rolfe, Mr Hill said he next heard the “Maori Rhapsody” when it was played by the Gothic Marine Band during the visit of the Queen to New Zealand. He had the score in front of him as he listened to the broadcast. His comment after the broadcast was that Mr Jones had obviously undergone an intense study of military band technique and that he had improved the work considerably. It was destined to be a classic. Rearrangement

The next move Mr Jones made to get his composition to the public was an approach -to Mr Rolfe in Auckland in November, 1954. Mr Rolfe was particularly impressed with it and sent it with recommendations to the A.P.R.A. Music Foundation in Australia.’ The foundation’s advisory committee was most impressed with the work but felt it would have a wider appeal as a brass band composition rather than a military band piece. With the composer’s permission they had the rhapsody rearranged for brass band by an outstanding Australian musical arranger, Mr Robert H. McAnally. The work was then sent to Melbourne for engraving.

Mr Rolfe said he hoped the “Maori Rhapsody” would be the first of many major New Zealand works which would be published with the assistance of A.P.R.A. A committee had been set up to make recommendations to the Australian foundation but the recommendations made would have to be for works which would compete on a world music market in the same way as the “Maori Rhapsody.”