Orchestra, Celebrity Concert Programmes

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30079, 13 March 1963, Page 11

Orchestra, Celebrity Concert Programmes

Programmes have now been announced tar the National Orchestra’s subscription series and for the new N.Z.B.C. celebrity series, which offers season tickets to four recitals—by the pianist, Lili Kraus, the Hungarian violinist, Tibor Varga, the Austrian pianist, Alfred Brendel, and the principal mezzo-soprano of the Swedish Opera, Kerstin Meyer. On June 18, Lili Kraus, who is well known tor her interpretations of Schubert, will give a concert including Impromptu in B flat and Impromptu in F minor. D.9SS, by Schubert, “Carnaval,” by Schumann and the “Eroica” Variations and Fugue by Beethoven. Tibor Varga, one of the most outstanding of the European violin professors who combine teaching with concert performanaces, will appear on July 8 in a varied programme which includes Sonata in B flat, K. 454, by Mozart, Debussy’s Sonata ■in G minor and Bach’s Sonata in G minor for Solo Violin.

Widely known for his expressive playing of Liszt, Alfred Brendel will play three late pieces—" Disaster,” Bagatelle Without Tonality, Czardas Macabre—and the Mephisto Waltz by Liszt on September 24. Also in the concert will be Sonata in E flat, K. 282, by Mozart, Fantasy in C (“The Wanderer”) by Schubert and a short Elegy by Busoni. On October 10, the celebrity series will end with a song recital by Kerstin Meyer. A star of Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, the Vienna State Opera and the New York Metropolitan Opera, Kerstin Meyer has sung principal roles for Wolfgang and Wieland Wagndr, Andre Oliuytens, Lorin Maazel and the leading role in the premiere of Boris Blacher’s new opera, "Rosamunda Floris.” Her wide concert

repertoire, performed with wch conductors as Sir John BartMToUi, Paul KLetzki and includes Mahler’s "The Song of the Barth," "Songs of the Wayfarer” and the Eighth Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem and the "Alto Rhapsody” by Brahms.

Th® National Orchestra subscription series will open on April 4 with Maurice Till as soloist in Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. Two Other major works will be Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. • and Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale." Nelli Schkolnikova, one of the foremost violinists of the generation in Russia, will be the soloist with the Tchaikovsky s Violin Concerto, which won her a special Ginette Neveu award in Paris in 1963 at the same time that she won the Jacques Thibaud and Margarets Long Laureate. The latest work by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn, Symphony No. 3 which had its first performance last year will be featured in the programme with Ravel’s “Alborada del Gracioso” and Suite No. 3 by Bach. On July 1, the orchestra will play Beethoven’s “Coriolan” Overture and Symphony No. 5 in F by Dvorak. Hie soloist will be Tibor Varga in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

Lili Kraus will be the soloist on July 3 in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E flat, K. 271. The concert, will include Hindemith’s Concert Music, and Symphony No. 4 in G by Mahler, in which Rosemary Rogatsy will be the soloist.

The Viennese conductor. Josef Krips, will conduct music from Mozart to Honegger in the last two subscription concerts on September 12 and 13. On the first night the orchestra will play Honegger’s Symphony No. 2 “Death and Transfiguration” by Richard Strauss and Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven. Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D opens the second programme followed by “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” by Richard Strauss and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C (the “Great”).