Henry Krips To Open Concert Season

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29728, 23 January 1962, Page 11

Henry Krips To Open Concert Season

Guest conductor of the National Orchestra in two special concerts at the Civic Theatre on February 5 and 6 wall be Henry Krips, conductor of the South Australian Symphony Orchestra since 1949. His brother, Josef, was guest conductor of the National Orchestra in 1958.

Bom in Vienna 48 years ago, Henry Krips studied at the Vienna Conservatorium. His first professional engagement was as assistant musical directors at the Innsbruck Municipal Theatre in the Tyrol. At 21 he was chief conductor at the Salzburg Municipal Theatre and the youngest musical director in Europe. In Vienna he was conductor of the Stadt Theatre for a season and later opera conductor of the Vienna Volksoper.

Henry Krips was 25 when he and his wife left Vienna for Australia in 1938 to escape Hitler’s armies. Today he says: "I have no desire to go back to Europe, except on occasional visits as guest conductor. "In Europe people are too much concerned with the past. My life is definitely in Australia, which is on the

threshold of a great future as a musical nation. Every year Australian singers or concert artists are hailed overseas as great discoveries; but it is a tremendous pity that they must go abroad for recognition.

"Sooner or later singers or musicians are faced with the fact that if they are to advance in their profession they must be recognised in Europe. And if they don’t go, people imagine they are not good enough to compete against the best overseas artists.

“This is a great fallacy and a severe handicap to Australian music. In Adelaide we have Carmel Hakendorf, who is undoubtedly in world class as a violinist: Glenda Raymond, the Melbourne soprano, is another great artist who deserves much wider recognition—but there are many more.” On his frequent overseas trips, Henry Krips has conducted many major British and European orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic, the Landon Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Halle, the Philharmonia—with whom he recorded works for Columbia —and the Vienna Symphony.

He has also done notable work as a composer. He has composed and conducted music for seven featurelength films and for many smaller ones. “Southern Intermezzo,” a work composed for saxophone and orchestra, won a prize in the Olympic Games music competition. Other musicians whom the N.Z.B.S. will bring to Christchurch this year include a Chilean, a negress and a man from Dnepropetrovsk. The Chilean is, of course. Claudio Arrau. Among the

great pianists of the world, he is acclaimed as the “greatest of the great.” ■ From the time of his birth in the wilds of Southern Chile, Arrau took less than 10 years to reach the Stern Conservatorium in Berlin. He taught himself musical notation, played Beethoven sonatas when he was four years old and gave his first public recital in Santiago the following year. The Chilean Government sent the Arrau family to Berlin. where the young prodigy studied under Martin Krause, who had been taught by Franz Liszt. The government of Arrau's native country has always taken great pride in the brilliant citizen who has had the world at his feet for almost half a century. Arrau travels on a diplomatic passport and he has had a street in Santiago named after him. In his early years Claudio Arrau had every prize and

superlative heaped upon him and he has remained at the pinnacle of his art and fame all his life. In the words of the “Boston Herald.” "the musical art of Claudio Arrau escapes the ordinary vocabulary. It is only possible to say that he is the best pianist of our time.” Concert-goers will have the rare opportunity to hear Claudio Arrau in a solo recital on September 22. The road to the top has been harder for negro soprano Camilla Williams Born in Danville, Virginia, into the family of a Negro chauffeur, Camilla began singing in the church choir when she was eight years old. After completing a science degree at Virginia State College, she was persuaded to study music.

She supplemented her scholarship money with a part-time job as a theatre usher until her native state established the Camilla Williams Fund. Twice winner of the Marian Anderson Award, she made her operatic debut as Cio-cio San in

“Madam Butterfly,” the second negro in United States history to appear in opera (Todd Duncan was the first). Camilia Williams first went to Europe in 1954. She followed her London debut with appearances at the international festivals at Vienna, Berlin and Salzburg. She made her debut at the Vienna Staatsoper in “Madame Butterfly" in 1955 and in the title role of Menotti’s “The Saint of Bleecker Street” at its Vienna premiere. Camilia Williams will i>e heard in a solo recital in Christchurch on May 31.

“One of the aristocrats of the violin,” Leonid Kogan has travelled a long way from Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine, where he was born in 1924. At the age of 10, as his genius emerged, he was taken to Moscow by his parents. He graduated with honours from the Moscow State Conservatory, at which he now teaches. In 1951 Leonid Kogan won first prize in the Concours Ysaye in Brussels. He is married to a sister of the eminent pianist, Emil Gilels, Elisabeth Gilels, who, is also a violinist of high standing in the Soviet Union. Kogan has carved an international reputation for himself and his debuts in London, in 1955, in Vienna and at the Athens Festival in 1956 gained massive ovations from critics and audiences.

“The young Russian violinist this winter conquered England. His preternatural technical accuracy and intensity of tone alone would place Kogan among the greatest living violinists,” said the New York “Herald Tribune.” Leonid Kogan will give a solo concert on June 11. A return visit will be paid this year by the Swiss pianist, Bela Siki. In Christchurch, Bela Siki will be heard with the National Orchestra on July 5, with the Natiop.ai Youth Orchestra on August 30 and 31, and in a solo recital on July 14.