SEEKING MUSIC

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 54, 27 November 1930, Page 16

SEEKING MUSIC

A New Zealand Man’s Quest TALKS WITH COMPOSERS A man who may be said, to have come to this country in search of music is at present staying in Edinburgh, said the “Edinburgh Evening News,” early last month. He is Mr. Walter Impett, musical critic of the “New Zealand Herald, and to an “Evening News” representative he told of the musical celebrities he has met and some of the outstanding events of his tour. He said he had been emineiftly successful in securing interviews with the leading British composers for the purpose of gathering a large amount of material, which he intended to use in a series of lecture recitals in New Zealand, on the work- of British composers. Among the musicians he has met are Sir Granville Bantock, Sir Frederick Cowan, Mr. Roger Quilter, Mr. Haydn Wood, Mr. Montague Phillips, Madame Teresa de Riego, Mr. Samuel Liddle, Mr. W. H. Squire and others. All the people he interviewed he said had placed every facility in his way so far as making public the excellent work being done by British composers. Mr. Impett expressed his deep regret at hearing of Mrs. Kennedy-Fraser’s illness, and professed great admiration for her arrangements of Hebridean folk songs, and proposed during his lectures to devote one evening to the interpretating of Mrs. Kennedy-Fraser’s songs and also those of British ballad composers.

Mr. Impett also .mentioned that he had returned from a six weeks’ tour of Germany, during which he was deeply impressed with the development of music there. Among memories he will cherish is that of the great Wagner festival at Bayreuth, which, from the point of view of staging and music, , was in every way a revelation. After a lapse of over 20 years Tannhauser had been revised with new scenery and effects.

While in Bayreuth Mr. Impett witnessed the impressive funeral of Siegfried Wagner, who has done so much to keep alive the Wagner tradition. The whole town was in mourning, and the ceremony was attended by leading members of the nobility, also musical people from all quarters. As the cortege passed through the streets an aeroplane sailed into sight, swooped low, and dropped a wreath, which floral tribute by means of a parachute gently descended until someone walking in the procession reached up and caught it before it fell to the ground. As was to be expected, Mr. Impett had an opinion to express about the effects of broadcasting on the musical tastes of the people. He thought tnat wireless concerts were disseminating a much wider taste for music among all classes, and such concerts were unconsciously educating those whose musical taste rose no higher than “Jazz.” There were numerous instances on record, he averred, of persons being educated in the direction of the classics to such an extent by the wireless programmes that they now never thought of listening to the type of music which they once so much admired.

Speaking of New Zealand, Mr. Impett, in conclusion, said that that country during the past years had been visited by many of the musical celebrities of the world. Though so far afield, New Zealand was probably in a better position than many provincial towns in this particular, for many of these celebrities gave three, four, or even more recitals in the town they visited when passing through the Dominion.