Szeryng returning for concert with N.Z.S.O.

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 12

Szeryng returning for concert with N.Z.S.O.

The Polish-born vio-• linist, Henryk Szeryng, ; will appear as soloist ini’ the Christchurch Town;' Hall on Saturday in al concert with the New n Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Henryk Szeryng was last in Christchurch in 1968, when he gave a recital accompanied by Janetta Mcjstay. This time he will play (two concertos with the orchestra, conducted by Juan

jMatteucci. He has been des-; jeribed as one of the greatest jviolinists of the century,! Idespite the fact that he did! (not begin his concert career I I until his mid-thirties. How he j ;came to start makes an in-; jteresting story. | Szeryng was born in Poland in a wealthy family who saw that he got a magnificent general education (he speaks seven languages) which included music, starting with the piano, then the violin. Some of the great names were among his teachers — Carl Flesch, Bronislav HuberImann, and Nadia Boulanger, land he has carried on their; | tradition, numbering among J his pupils Wanda Wilko-i Imirska. Although he gavel i about 10 concerts in Europe ; (between 1933 and 1938. hej (considered himself mainly a! i scholar and composer. When war broke out in > 1939, he became aide and translator for the Polish premier-in-exile, General Sik- | orski. but also gave many ? concerts for Allied service- > men and for prisoners-of-war. ’ These began to give him the I'urge to communicate through (his violin. He says. “Music ■ I ceased to be merely an lexquisite art and something

out of this world: it had a. humanitarian and social; function and a function of; getting people together.” In December, 1942, he spent five days in Mexico on a mission to relocate 4000 displaced Poles. On his last day, after the Mexican Government had agreed to take the refugees, he gave a short recital which was heard by some of the senior Mexican musicians. He made such an impression that immediately after the war ended he was invited to go to Mexico to teach at the conservatory and the university. He (accepted, and a year later [became a Mexican citizen by I Presidential decree.

He might have remained in Mexico, unknown except to his students, if the great pianist Artur Rubinstein had not given a recital in Mexico City in 1954. Szeryng was so excited by the recital that he rushed backstage and started to talk to Rubinstein in Polish. The pianist was intrigued by his compatriot and asked him to play for him the following day. Rubinstein was so moved by Szeryng’s playing that he urged him to begin a concert 'career, and gave him all the.

necessary contacts. Szeryng began his international travels in 1956, and the same year he was appointed goodwill ambassador for Mexico, :and now travels on a diplo[matic passport promoting the (culture of his adopted [country. He has been j honoured with awards by many countries, and has won the Grand Prix du Disque six times.

In Christchurch on Saturday he will play Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 in G, K 216, and Brahms’s Concerto in D, Opus 77. Mozart’s concerto is one of five he wrote in 1775 at the request of his father, Leopold. who was an accomplished violinist. The Brahms concerto is considered to be one of the great;est works written for the violin. It was first performed in 1879 by the great Joachim, with Brahms conducting. Bronislav Hubermann has described it as “ ... a concerto for violin against orchestra — and the violin wins.” The programme also [includes Tchaikovsky’s Symiphonic Fantasia “Francesca de Rimini.”