SONATA RECITALS

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 76, 31 March 1922, Page 3

SONATA RECITALS

A SERIES SUCCESSFULLY]

LAUNCHED.

Sonata recitals do not appeal to all, j for the sonata is the very refinement of j formal, finished instrumental music, a composition to be studied for the beauties that lie hidden, and the form by which those hidden beauties are made manifest. It is a musical form past which many an instrumentalist and many a listener hurries by, not because, tha music is without delight, but because tha ' form is not widely studied to-day, and ia but seldom offered on the concert platform; bui, since each performance of a. sonata, providing it be a jsound performance, helps to revive that passionate interest in tie higher forms of musio which held Europe and, later, England when the great masters lived and wrote, a recital such as that given by Miss Ava Symons and Mr. Bernard F. Page in the Concert Chamber last evening has a value not merely-to those- who listened, but to those to whom the listeners' interest, and perhaps example, will be passed. The audience was not large, but the recital was tha first of a series to bs given during the year, and as Wellington is quick to recognise worth, though inclined to wait awhile to.judge, further, recitals should be liberally patronised. The programme comprised three great sonatas, two of them, Handel's Sonata in D Major, in four movements (adagio, allegro, larghetto,. and allegro), and Beethoven's Op. 24, in F Major (allegro,, adagio, molto expressive, scherzo-allegro molto, and rondo), known to all who have studied the sonata form; and tha third, Lekeu's Sonata in G Major, a delightful surprise. ■ Lekeu, a youthful Belgian composer, who studied under the great Cesar Franck, was born in 1870, and was cut short in his genius when twenty-four years of age. His works are unknown, go to speak, in New Zealand, and Miss Symons and Mr. Pago have done well indeed in introducing so brilliant a composition as the G Major Sonata to a Wellington audience. It is a composition of many surprises and wonderful contrasts, for the moods of the three movements (tees moderre—vif; et passione, tres lent, and tres anime) are more sharply distinct than those of the calm Handel Sonata played and of thenobly restrained F Major of Beethoven; the fine technique of form as determined by the old masters is combined in the Lekeu Sonata with the interest and brilliance of the moderns. The performance, as the aim of ths performers, was excellent. Mr. Page's talent as an organist is known, but as a pianist v he is not known to the public, which is much to be regretted,, for his work is undoubtedly marked with fine finish, considerable brilliance, and a personal interest without which, mere technique cannot succeed. Miss Syinons is known to all as one of New Zealand's most finished violinists, and it is worthy of interest to note that she used for the first time in public last evening a remarkably fine Venetian violin, by. Bulosius, of the Sfcradivarius school of makers. The second recital is announced for 10th May. .