Concert Arouses Enthusiasm

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30471, 19 June 1964, Page 12

Concert Arouses Enthusiasm

The audience which filled the Civic Theatre last evening was roused to a high pitch of enthusiasm in the concert given by the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, which had Mr Eduard Fischer as its guest conductor. The leader was Mr Vincent Aspey. Nobody could fail to be impressed with the guest conductor’s ability to get the best from his players. The programme began with Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504. Mr Fischer gave us a performance of this work which was strong, wellknit, and in keeping with a logical plan. It was stylish in its clearly-marked and flexible phrasing. Rhythmically it was forceful and direct, with welldefined shape and no loose ends. Tonally the playing had a lively intensity, and excellent balance and attractive ensemble effects were secured. Possibly such virtues could be in the playing without much feeling for the inner meaning of the music being apparent, but this was certainly not so. The symphony came to us with the inner glow and radiance which shows collective response to what lies beneath the notes. Not Rehearsed Mr Denis Matthews, the distinguished English pianist and musician, was the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in B flat. Because of some transport arrangements going awry, the orchestral in-

struments were too late in arriving in Christchurch for this work to be rehearsed. While this must have caused much anxiety and possibly chagrin, the performance did not appear to suffer, for it certainly had spontaneity and eclat. Mr Fischer so directed his players that they were never in two minds as to his intentions. Clean melodic lines, intensity of sound in tutti passages, graceful phrasing of solo parts, and unanimity in changes of expressive levels were all most praiseworthy. Very good balance was maintained within . the orchestra itself, and between it and Mr Matthews.

Mr Matthews’s playing was a delight to hear. His touch gives bright life and soaring vitality to every beautifullyturned phrase. The music poured from the piano with a rich elegance in stately clarity of melodic lines, and it all seemed to come so effortlessly. The complete security of his playing must have done much to disperse any understandable anxieties about the performance. This was beautiful playing, so clear in purpose and in certainty of result in every fine detail of expression and nicety of nuance.

The second half of the concert gave us a riot of romantic colouring from two of Mr Fischer’s fellow countrymen, Dvorak and Smetana.

In Dvorak’s “Symphonic Variations on an Original

Theme” Mr Fischer inspired the orchestra to give us a tour de force of glowing and romantic playing. He conducted from memory, and it certainly seemed that every fine point in the music has become part of him. Apart from the pleasure listeners had in the music itself, and that was there in profuse abundance, it was most interesting to watch a conductor’s control in a work which obviously he feels deeply. After the mellow and embracing theme had been given out and then played again by the strings with spiky little counter-melodies from the wood wind, it expanded in diverting convolutions of imaginative and intense feeling all holding the audience’s closest attention with what was said, quite apart from the technical skill in the devices used in saying it. One variation merged into the next with cunning changes of mood, sometimes in violent contrast and sometimes just by way of expansion of the previous idea. But throughout all the metamorphoses there was strong underlying unity and it a'l culminated in a stirring and soaring fugue which swept all before it. Mr Fischer never missed a point in conveying every subtlety to his players individually, and the result was splendid coherence and richly imaginative playing.

And so it was too In Smetana’s tone poem “From Bohemia’s Woods and Meadows.” Although it did not have the profusion of technical device in harmony and orchestration which the previous work had, nevertheless it had deep-moving sincerity and richly overflowing expression. Although there was lavish detail, there was a concise and clear message which always made its point clearly. The introduction suggested hills with lowering clouds, but these faded into shimmering sunshine in a calm and entrancing little fugue, played at high speed first by the strings and suggesting mountain rivulets rushing on their headlong way. In some ways the fugue is like that in Smetana’s overture to “The Bartered Bride.”

Well, away it all went suggesting entrancing little scenes from nature and eventually the fugue was joined by a chorale-like melody from the horns and wood-wind. This was taken up by the full orchestra when the fugue had run its charming course, and it was from that point that the people came into the picture and human warmth was added to the natural scene in lively dances and general jollification. We are indeed grateful to Mr Fischer for these two excellent works interpreted with such scintillating skill. C.F.B.