ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Music: Quartet Concerto Premiere, Etc

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 10

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Music: Quartet Concerto Premiere, Etc

The first New Zealand performance of Bohuslav Martinn’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra will be given by the Prague Quartet and the Christchurch Civic Orchestra in the Civic Theatre tomorrow evening.

“It’s a very exciting work,” said the conductor, Professor J. A. Ritchie, who was introduced to the work by the Prague Quartet of the University of Canterbury. Martinu, one of Czechoslovakia’s most highly regarded twentieth-century composers, intended writing a series of Prague concertos, but this work is all that came of his plan.

It shows the influence of his preoccupation with the older concerto grosso form and, as such, resembles Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Bartok’s Divertimento and even Bloch’s Concerto Grosso. But the similarities are structural rather than stylistic. Martinu’s work is an extrovert, colourful piece in which not only is the solo quartet given long passages of prominence, but also the brass and woodwind, and these resources are deployed with brilliant and even blatant regard for force and rhythmic excitement. Each of its three movements is an individual essay for an unusual medium. Collectively they make a composition of which the New Zealand premiere should prove an event of importance. Besides this modern work, the concert will include performances of Mozart’s Symphony No 36 in D minor, the “Linz,” and of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Regarded as one of Mozart’s finest symphonies, the “Linz,” is also noted for the speed with which it was composed, copied, rehearsed and first performed an operation accomplished in four days by Mozart on a brief visit to the town of Linz. Although the Civic Orchestra has played Beethoven

piano concertos with such renowned figures as Julius Katchen and Fou T’song, it will face one of its most testing assignments when, with Bretislav Novotny of the Prague Quartet, it will perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto. This will be Mr Novotny’s only concerto appearance in Christchurch.

The quartet will make its last appearance with the orchestra in this concert, but the occasion will also mark the first appearance of the new leader of the orchestra, Louis Yffer, who, after a distinguished career in English orchestras over the last 30 years, has been brought to the

city by the Christchurch Civic Orchestra Foundation. Mr Yffer has been working the orchestra since early this month. AUSTRALIAN VIOLINIST Today a prominent young Australian violinist, Ronald Woodcock, will give a lunchtime recital at 1.10 p.m. in the University Hall. Accompanied by Colleen Rae, he will play Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No 6 in A, Op 30 No 1, Prokofiev’s Five Melodies (1925), and Webern’s Four Pieces, Op 7. The Webern will probably attract the most attention, coming within a fortnight of

the Israel Philharmonic’s performance of this Viennese composer’s Op 6, Six pieces for Orchestra, in which a huge orchestra was used to make some tiny, mysterious and momentous sounds and some loud, terrifying ones as well. Although the Six Pieces lasted only a matter of minutes, “The Press” critic devoted half his space to them. The Violin Pieces are said to be even more concise, with crescendi within the bar.

Mr Woodcock, who is 36, studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium and later with Jack Kessler, Arthur Grumiaux and Pablo Casals. CELLO FEAST

The university lunch-time recital on Thursday should offer a feat of cello playing. It will be given by the cello pupils of Zdenek Konicek of the Prague Quartet. The performers will be Julie White, Stephen McCurdy, Carl Brisse, Brian Sandle, Allan Chisholm and Polly Sussex (cellists) and with Romola Griffiths (violinist). SECOND TOUR

The coloratura soprano Rita Streich will start her second New Zealand tour with a recital in Christchurch on Saturday evening. She will return on Octobber 7 for a concert with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony.

A star of the Vienna State Opera since 1963, Rita Streich has been popular for more than a decade as a concert, opera and recording artist. She first toured New Zealand

in 1960 and is making her fourth tour of Australia at present. Although coloratura sopranos are usually quick to gain public recognition, they rarely enjoy the steady affection that has been won by Rita Streich. In many countries she has visited her linguistic ability often permits her to sing local folk songs as well as the more conventional concert repertoire. Concert work, especially lieder, is often beyond the scope of singers who specialise in operatic roles, but it was as a singer of lieder that Rita Streich made her initial triumphant tour of the United States in 1957. Throughout Europe, too, she has won wide acclaim as a lieder singer, although she is perhaps best known for her interpretations of Mozart operatic roles. Born in Siberia in 1926, Rita Streich spent her childhood in Germany and studied singing under Erna Berger and Maria Invogun in Berlin. While in her teens Rita Streich made her debut in a very minor role in “Rigoletto” in 1945. Within a year she had her first success as Olympia in “Tales of Hoffman” at the Berlin Opera. The pictures show (top left) Rita Streich with some Australians, (lower left) another Australian, Ronald Woodcock, and (above) John Ritchie with the Prague Quartet, from left, Bretislav Novotny, Karel Pribyl, Zdenek Konicek, and Jaroslav Karlovsky.