MUSIC AND HEAT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 14, 11 October 1932, Page 6

MUSIC AND HEAT

Concert in Queen’s Hall LONDON SWELTERS Wagner Season Opens Special to The Dominion.

By

Nelle M. Scanlan

London, August 19. One should not write about the weather, but when grim old London serves up 90 in the shade —a ninety that feels like 100—there is nothing else to think about. It is the hottest ninety I have ever felt, but a big, flat city, crowded with moving millions, and petrol-laden air, cannot be judged against other nineties. As I write in the early morning—not too early, mind' you—the air is still, and quivering. From my window I can see three small children in an adjoining garden, dancing in scant bathing clothes under a hose. A tall, stout woman, quite young, runs down the stairs, that are draped in clinging creeper. She is wearing only a. white silk blouse and wide black satin pyjamas, and she looks like a saek-tied-ugly. A big yellow cat lies on the garden wall, its tail hanging free, as though that appendage which is usually coiled comfortably around it, were a nuisance. Not a leaf stirs, and one bird with a tired twitter, shelters in the chestnut tree. It is in this sweltering heat that Sir Henry Wood opens the thirty-seventh season of the promenade concerts in the Queen’s Hall. Who says the English are not musical? It was Monday and Wagner. Monday is always Wagner. The hall was crowded; every seat in the gallery and circle was full. In the centre of the promenade, in other words, the main floor of the hall, a fountain played into an artificial pool, set about with ferns and water lilies. Goldfish hid in the cool corners of huge shells, or darted in a red flash, with waving tail, to join meetings of protest in lily glades against this intrusion into their privacy of a whole brass band. No, not a band, a symphony orchestra, but with Wagner, plenty of brass. After waiting in the queue for more than two hours, hundreds of people stood and promenaded for more than two hours—sweltering hours, while Sir Henry Wood, complete with carnation, conducted with a. vigour that would shame an Olympic athlete.Promenade, I said. But during the music, not a foot stirred, and in a pause one could hear the cool, gentle play of the tiny fountain, so quietly they stood, packed there like sardines, first on one aching foot, then the other. Most of the promenaders were young. Hatless girls in sleeveless frocks, and young men in casual clothes. One even took off his coat, and stood with his braces revealed unblushiilgly. When the interval came, they crowded into the bar for ices and long, cold drinks. Others sat on the kerb on the roadside, and fanned themselves with newspapers. There is nothing else quite like the proms., and its informality during that informal month, August, when Loudon Is "not at homo,” has a Continental flavour. The two soloists were Florence Austral and Walter Widdop, both ’great Wagnarians. Florence Austral, with her fair handsome face, wore a ravishing gown of grass green, moulded to fit, edged with ruchings, and an apron drape. Her voice was lovely; fresh and sweet and clear. And she has added to that gift of voice, every year an increasing artistry. No wonder the. mere name “Austral” will fill the opera houses of Europe and America. So, while the heat lasts, and it seems in no hurry to leave us, nightly Sir Henry Wood will wield his baton over bis Symphony Orchestra, yes, for six weeks. And every Monday will be Wagner, Wednesday Brahms, Thursday Schubert and Liszt, Friday Beethoven. Last Tuesday the audience heard the first English performance of Ravel’s concerto for the left hand, played by Paul Wittgenstein, the one-, armed pianist, for whom it was written.