Youth band has big sound

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 14

Youth band has big sound

The Auckland Youth Symphonic Band deserved a larger audience than it attracted to the Town Hall on Saturday night. Conducted by Hugh Dixon, this 53-piece concert band of teen-age players presented a varied programme of big-band music — from arrangements of Bach and Handel to works by Holst and Grundman, from Offenbach to Bacharach and Mancini. The audience could be excused if at first it thought they were gate-crashing a rehearsal. A final “runthrough” barely 10 minutes before starting time, followed by a prolonged tuningup on stage and casual chat among performers, built up the wrong kind of atmosphere. At its best, the style of

playing of this band might be described as “efficient.”

The bigger textures were easily dominated by the brass, who played with a finely-controlled tone. Most other players, especially the senior clarinets, had overcome technical problems, although generally the woodwind intonation was a little suspect, especially noticeable in passages of the Holst “Second Suite” (a work which was pleasing to hear) and in Grainger’s “Irish Tune.” The marches and medleys from music-shows were slick and clearly-delivered, with a carefully-regulated rhythm as was emphasised by the unconscious foot-tapping of many of the {flayers. A particularly attractive work was “Japanese Rhapsody,” by Grundman (based on three Japanese songs), I which evoked a “pseudoJapanese” atmosphere within a carefully-gauged'

twentieth-century Oriental texturing. Particularly disappointing pieces were the arrangements of Bach’s “Passacaglia” and the Handel “Fireworks” allegro, which were poor representations of the originals.

As a relief to the programme, Wendy Dixon, accompanied on the piano by Karen Wahlberg, sang songs by Schubert (including “Shepherd on the Rock’ with a clarinettist, Quentin Maxwell-Jackson), Rachmaninov, Dvork and Gershwin. She had splendid control and a mature sense of styling. Her brother, Michael Dixon, proved to be an impressive French Horn soloist with the band in a flawless and shapely performance |of the Rondo finale from Mozart’s Third Horn Concerto.

John M. Jennings