THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 25045, 11 December 1943, Page 9

THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

(By LJ).A.) There are probably few works, among the larger forms of music for the piano, which wear better than Grieg's famous concerto for piano and orchestra. This noble composition retains its freshness and beauty after more than three-quar-ters of a century of existence, during which it has been performed oftener than any work of its kind, due chiefly to the fact that it is almost equally popular with the average listener as with the trained musician; there is in it a quality of universal-appeal found only in the products of true genius, the reward of which is immortality. Yet Grieg was barely 21 when he wrote this lovely concerto, with its masterly orchestral accompaniment, thus rivalling the achievements of Chopin, whose two concertos were ako the .work of a very young man. Grieg himself was the first to play this concerto in public, indicating that in his earlier days he must have had considerable command of the instrument, for only pianists of very high class can do it justice.

But, as a matter of fact, the first actual " tryout " of Grieg's concerto was given by Franz Liszt at Rome, where Grieg visited him in 1805, and subsequently described the experience in a graphic letter to a Norwegian friend. He tells how, full of awe and excitement, he took the concerto—then not long completed and still in manuscript —to Liszt, who, cigar in mouth, placed it on his piano nonchalantly and, without any further preliminaries, performed the work at sight—orchestral part included—as perfectly as though he had known it previously by heart. Grieg listened like one in a trance, dumifouuded with amazement, wonder, and delight, for the great pianist brought out and emphasised beauties in the score which were thus newly revealed even to the man who had created them. " I heard my own work played as never in my highest flights of fancy I had dreamed that it could be played," said Grieg—and we can well believe him.

I have heard Grieg's concerto rendered by many fine pianists in my time, one of "the most impressive performances being that by P]ilcen Joyce when she visited New Zealand seven years ago; and, according to reports which J have no reason to doubt, we have in this country a young pianist who bids fair in time to evoke' comparison with that very eminent artist. The, young lady in question has been mentioned in this column before; she is Jean Anderson, of Christchurch. _ On November 27 last, at a concert given by the Eroica Club in that city, she played the concerto referred to, accompanied on a second piano by Ernest Empson, in a. manner thatstirred the listeners to as near a positive furore as has ever been known there. One who was present writes me in the most enthusiastic terms of Miss Anderson's performance. He says it was simply magnificent and compared very favourably with that of Eileen Joyce, which he remem'bers well. The young artist received an ovation almost unprecedented in Christchurch musical circles, and it is generally hoped that before long arrangements can be made for her to repeat the work with full orchestral accompaniment. From all accounts, Mr Empson acquitted himself admirably on the second piano; in, fact, without his expert assistance Miss Anderson could hardly have shown to such advantage. Nevertheless, for its proper effect the work needs the marvellous orchestral colouring created by the composer, and with such a setting we may confidently expect from Jean Anderson an interpretation that will eclipse even her recent triumph.

Grieg's total output of composition was not large roughly, about one work for each year of his life, but there were among these very few " duds.'' Perhaps the ' Holberg Suite ' is his weakest creation 1 found myself obliged to switch off a recent broadcast of it—'but generally he wrote on a consistently high level. When you come to think of it, there are some remarkably dull and tedious pages in the works of uearly all the great composers—though, of course, it is not always possible to obtain agreement among listeners as to what is dull and what inspiring. For example, I personally esteem Mahler's Ninth Symphony as a monumental creation of genius, beside which Bethoven's Ninth ditto is the quintessence of tedium, but others may, and do, hold a precisely

converse opinion. With the exception of one movement ill each case, I rank Bach's Suite in D major and Tchaikowskv's String Quartet, opus 11, as deadlv dull affaire, whilst anything less " fireworky " than Handel's co-called ' Firework Music ' I have never heard. All these have figured in radio programmes lately, and have set me wondering about the inconsistency of the great composers. One of these days, perhaps, common sense will dictate a Tuthless purging of the classics—cut out all the dull stuff. This is one of the tasks that should have been envisaged by the " Big Three " when they met at Teheran last week. But, joking apart, music will inevitably play an increasingly important role in the new order of things after the war, and only the best should survive. The question, though, is—who'6 to be the arbiter? Ay, there's the rub!