Contemporary Music Concert

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32314, 4 June 1970, Page 12

Contemporary Music Concert

The Society for Contemporary Music presented a recital in the University Hall last evening. It was a pity that the audience was so small, for Margaret Nielsen and James Cahill were able performers and had prepared interesting 1 programmes.

Miss Nielsen began with Five Pieces for Piano by Edwin Carr. The first, a Toccata, was an adventurous little work, perky in spirit, and ranging widely in its <iy-j namics. Aria One was a! pleasing piece of musing. The' third, entitled Sonata, had plenty of strength but seemed to need wider acquaintance. 1 The second Aria was immediately attractive and the Finale was vigorous and strongly welded. The works harmonically were serial tone-row compositions and had challenging rhythmic character. James Cahill, substituting for Ross Mayhew who was ill, very ably and interestingly sang seven songs s y Charles Ives. “Mists” had a haunting beauty, and “The White Gulls” was a song of strange atmospheric attraction. All the songs seemed to lie comfortably on the voice: and Mr Cahill, whose voice is powerful and of vibrant timbre, interpreted them with wide varieties of tone and with dramatic understanding. Rosemary Stott was a splendid accompanist, sensitive to each phrase and producing beautiful tone and colour.

Miss Nielsen began the second part of the programme with Piano Piece IX by Karlheinz Stockhausen which be-

;gan with a harsh dissonance ■struck forcibly many times until it sounded rather like a bad knocking in the engine, threatening breakdown and ■ expenditure. When much more than enough of this had been heard, the work yielded some arresting flights of fancy (some most attractive in their momentary life and all commanding attention I. Miss Nielsen played this work and all the others on her programme with brilliance and complete assurance of authority. Her playing held a more extended and continuing appreciation than much ■of this type of music heaped together into one evening’s programme could do. She served the composers faithfully in every small detail. Four “Stabiles” (“stabili” is apparently an antonym for “mobile”) by Jack Body, an Auckland composer now living abroad, were pleasingly impressionistic although the impressions had to be fleeting ones. The second movement , in particular had a will-o’-the-wisp attraction.

The’last work was “Suggesitions for Piano” by Kazimierz Serocki. This was an example ■of the type of work where : sections of its make-up are left to the performer to use ! in any order he may elect If it had much to say it was not easy to know exactly what that was. Attention can take only a certain amount of this idiom—and Mr Serocki’s suggestions kept being mixed up with others of strange portent and impossible fulfilment. —C.F.B.