Radio: Concert Year In Retrospect

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 8

Radio: Concert Year In Retrospect

A selection from the YC programmes in 1965 entitled “1965 in Retrospect,” will be broadcast from all YC stations on Thursday and Friday evenings this week.

This annual programme has been split in two this year because the cricket test has annexed the first part of each evening’s programme.

Centralised programming has given it something of a national character. Recorded entirely in New Zealand, “1965 in Retrospect” takes a look at the YC year and a longer look at the concert year, with excerpts from tonring artists’ concerts, some of them with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony. From the year’s poetry readings there will be a selection tomorrow night and from the year’s radio plays Alexander Guyan’s “Conversations with a Golliwog” will be heard on Friday. The touring artists range from Victoria de.los Angeles and Colin Horsley who made return visits, to Phyllis Sellick and Cyril Smith, three hands on two pianos, Paul Serebriakov, who was the nearest to a musical Rip Van Winkle to appear in recent years, the Borodin Quartet and the Vienna Octet. N.Z.B.C. SYMPHONY After an active but unambitious year, the N.Z.B.C. Symphony is generously represented and is heard with its own conductor (Matteucci), its caretakers (Bonney and Smetacek), and with two composers leading their own works (Farquhar and Franchi). But with the orchestra in 1965 it has been a matter of waiting for 1966. The recruiting done, the three-figure orchestra will have greater tonal resources and be able to play modern works such as the 52-year-old “Rite of Spring,” “Don Quixote” (the Gerhard, perhaps), and possibly Mahler. There will even be players to spare for a break-away Little Symphony to cheer provincial centres.

From the Pan Pacific Arts Festival, which had the Victorian State Symphony (a bigger band than our own, but not better), "Porgy and Bess,”

Ravi Shankar, the Berkshire Quartet, and a live Lilburn performance (in contrast to the recent birthday broadcasts of old recordings), the Wellington folk have chosen for “1965 in Retrospect” the finale of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony with New Zealand soloists and the two big Christchurch choirs. Was this all that was worth recalling from the festival?

It could be argued that the choirs also could have been better represented for their music-making has been national—the Royal visited Auckland and Blenheim—and international—the Harmonic visited Britain and the United States—this year. The N.Z.B.C. recorded and broadcast the Royal’s Auckland concerts, but, unless the recordings are still in the pipeline, it made no arrangements to rebroadcast those of the Harmonic’s overseas concerts that were recorded.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission, on the other hand, telephoned the opening concert of the Commonwealth Arts Festival in which both the Harmonic and the Sydney Symphony took part so that it could be rebroadcast in Australia the next evening. CRITICS’ DOUBTS

There were some rumblings among Australian music critics when the Sydney Symphony was chosen for the British tour, for although, they said, the orchestra had made great strides under Dean Dixon, it was not up to the standard of the Goossens era and certainly not ready to tour.

Matters were made worse when, in June, the visiting Hungarian conductor, Antal Dorati, cancelled a Sydney concert performance of the “Rite of Spring” because it required more rehearsal than had been allowed.

However, the London critics were well disposed towards the orchestra. “The Times” described it after the opening concert as “a virile group with its main strength emanating from the string section. The tone quality, if not of the sleekest, was always generous and intense, and the players managed to con-

vey enthusiasm without loss of detail.”

On Saturday’s “New Records” programme from 3YC Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony, which is arguably known as the “Polish,” will be broadcast in full. The title was added by the publisher without Tchaikovsky’s approval to the work, which is based mainly on folk material.

The Fiji Art Club has joined the Chamber Music Federation of New Zealand and proposes to hold several chamber-music concerts each year in Suva’s Mormon Church Hall, which seats 400. The Fiji Art Club has been active in presenting drama and choral performances and receives an annual grant from the Fiji Art Council.