THE WEEK’S RADIO New Music From The Coventry Festival

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29900, 14 August 1962, Page 10

THE WEEK’S RADIO New Music From The Coventry Festival

The opening of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral was not only an occasion for architecture and other visual arts; three large-scale works by leading British composers had their premieres at the Coventry Festival.

They were Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, which was the subject of a long article on this page shortly after the premiere, Sir Arthur Bliss’s cantata, “The Beatitudes" and Michael Tippett’s second opera "King Priam " The Beatitudes" will be heard from the YC’s at 9.30 p.m. tomorrow, “King Priam" at 7.30 p.m. on Monday, and the War Requiem on Sunday, August 26. at 8.35 p.m. “The Beatitudes." which opened the festival, was written for performance in the new cathedral, but had to be given in the Coventry Theatre instead. The music critic of “The Times" felt the lack of the spaciousness and mysterious atmosphere of church acoustic so important that “one might even claim that the new work cannot yet be justly appraised on the basis of this performance in the utterly secular ambience of the Coventry Theatre."

of a startling bluntnesa and idiosyncracy that only gradually reveal their flexibility and Emotional power. “The vocal line is generally melodious, abounding in melisma, the musical texture generally marked by Tippett’s characteristic rhythmical intricacy, sometimes quirky and nervous in effect, but most often exhilarating. The score was vividly and sonorously brought to life . . . under John Pritchard, who conducted the Covent Garden Opera Company. The bass, Forbes Robertson, created a fine impression by his singing in the title role. Other singers were Marie Collier (soprano) as Hecuba. Josephine Veasey (soprano) as Andromache, Margreta Elkins (contralto) as Helen, Richard Lewis as Achilles, and John Dobson as Paris. Callas As Norma

a furore at the Metropolitan (though critics have questioned his suitability for the part of Pollione in "Norma"), the German mezzo-soprano, Christa Ludwig, and the Greek bass. Nicola Zaccaria. The conductor of the ■La Scala Chorus and Orchestra is the veteran Tullio Serafim. Three Plays

Bill Naughton’s play, “Seeing a Beauty Queen Home” (YAs, 3 p.m., Sunday) is a comedy of Lancashire life in the 1920'5, when beauty queens were first beginning to be chosen in the dance halls. Bill Naughton was born in Ireland, but lived most of his life in Northern England, which he recalls vividly and with affection. He has written many books and stories with Cockney or Irish settings. “The Eyes of Youth” (3YA, 7.30 tonight) was adapted by Ted Willis and Gale Pedrick from a novel by Rosemary Timperley. The setting is an English co-educational grammar school. Among the pupils is a girl with deep emotional disturbances which arouse the sympathy of a woman teacher. The teacher's involvement in the child's problems, and the final crises which she is partly responsible for causing. make an interesting study.

The revival of interest during the 1950's in the operas of Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35) has been primarily because of the singing, especially in the title role of “Norma," of the Greek-American soprano, Maria Callas. She will be heard as Norma in a new complete recording of the opera—her second —from 3YC at 7 o'clock tonight. Critics have been somewhat divided in their comments on Callas’s performance, but the consensus seems to be that her conception of the part is even finer than in the 1954 recording, although her voice has become less solid. “Has she, then, become a poor Norma?" asks an American critic. “No, of course not. She can still tear into a florid passage with an accuracy and fury unmatched among today's sopranos, and she can still force tears with her lastact supplications. Her scene with the children is. as formerly, terrifying and moving. It is simply that she cannot sing as well as she once could, particularly when the music lies high." Others in the cast include Franco Corelli, the young Italian tenor who has been creating

The canata is in 14 sections The nine Beatitudes are interspersed with poems by Henry Vaughan, George Herbert Jeremy Taylor and Dylan Thomas. This anthological method is used to comment on the teachings with which Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount.

The work did not gain a particularly favourable reception in the press. “The Times" said: “At present it seems that the work does not flow easily from beginning to end. This impression is partly due to weak links between sections. But the slender coherence of the whole cantata is also, one suspects, caused by a preponderance of musical invention that is merely suitable and not spiritually inevitable."

“The Angry Silence” (ZBs. 8.30 p.m., Sunday) is an adaptation of Bryan Forbes’ screenplay for the film of the same name. Gale Pedrick, who made the adaptation, feels the play will lose little —if anything—by transferring it to radio. The effort of visual imagination required should bring it closer to each listener. It concerns Tom Curtis, who refuses to join his fellow workers in a strike. They ostracise him. unscrupulous elements inflame opinion against him further and a violent situation arises.

In the “Financial Times.” Andrew Porter wrote: “The Beatitudes” is imaginative in conception, and the idea of the work has been capably carried out. The idiom is that of Bliss's ballet and film scores, crossed with the solid merit of the English oratorio tradition. High inspiration it lacks. But the piece is so vigorously and competently made that one is tempted to welcome it to the repertory of modern choral works The welcome, however, is tempered by one important reservation: Bliss's word setting is at times so conventional and at others so insensitive that the disparity between the texts and the music seems almost fatal.”

The performance is by the Coventry Festival Chorus and the 8.8. C Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the composer, with the soloists. Jennifer Vyvyan (soprano) and Richard Lewis (tenor) “she, artistic by intention but far from tender in tone; he. unimaginative and conventional in utterance.” Andrew Porter thought. Tippett's Opera Tippett’s new opera, written to his own libretto, tells the story of “The Iliad" as seen from within the walls of Troy. Neither Agamemnon nor Achilles, but Priam Is the protagonist struggling with destiny. "The Times" said: “Clarity has throughout been Tippett's aim, and this has led him not only to extreme economy of orchestral writing (much of the vocal music, particularly for the women, is accompanied by a single instrumental line, or piano alone; the second act is scored without strings at all. the beginning of the third act without wind or brass) but to forms and phraseology