CONCERT GIVEN BY LIEDERKRANZCHEN

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 12

CONCERT GIVEN BY LIEDERKRANZCHEN

The Christchurch Liederkranzchen, under the direction of Geoffrey Thorpe, and with Barbara Caygill as accompanist, gave a concert in the Society of Arts Gallery on Saturday evening. Part-songs by Purcell. Elgar, and Cyril Jenkins made up the first group sung with care for balance, and with pleasing tone in soft work. The rhythm and cohesion of the singing were good and there was plenty of variety of expression. There was some doubtful tonal quality in some of the heavier singing. It needs but a few singers in a group to adopt forcing methods towards a sound for the quality of all to become marred. An excessively fast vibrato from some of the singers makes the ensemble sound like an organ recital when the player continually uses a tremulant.

Mr Alan Brown, a trumpeter, played the last movement of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Schubert’s “To Music,” showing good control and clarity of tone. A softer general level might have been more effective in that hall. Ngaire Johnston is to be congratulated on a pleasing performance of Schumann’s song cycle, “A Woman’s Life and Love.” Her tone was warm and delicately coloured; and she showed good under standing of the requirements of the hall. It was a movingly sincere performance, sensitive to the poetry. At times a more buoyant pressing forward might have heightened some of the more ecstatic movements, but the whole interpretation seemed to hold together excellently. The sudden change to tragedy in the last song was beautifully conveyed. Barbara Caygill, whose playing of the accompaniments throughout the evening was helpful to the choir, played the

accompaniments of this set of songs with poetic understanding. The choir sang “Make the Car of a Golden King—Cup,” by Costa, with attractive freshness and sparkle, and had rounded and warm tone in Elgar’s “My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land.”

Most of the second part of the programme was taken up by “A Sketch-Book of Women,” a cantata by Thomas Pitfield, in which various types of women are offered for approval or disapprobation gossips, a schoolmistress, a dancer, a singer, a witch, a mother, some housewives —and some cleverly evocative music is heard. Although most of the music can be stimulatingly interesting while it is being heard, it is likely to be quite forgotten three minutes later. Mr Thorpe conducted with a quiet manner which, nevertheless, always kept full disciplinary control over the singers. He knew what he wanted in interpretative style and precision and would not settle for less. —C.F.B.