MUSICAL TOPICS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 144, 17 May 1930, Page 7

MUSICAL TOPICS.

MUSIC IN LONDON. (By “Semibreve.”) At the Royal Philharmonic Society’s concort in the third week in March Dr. Vaughan Williams was presented with tho society’s gold medal, a decoration worth having, not only for tho reason that tho awarding of it omphasises tho fact of a 1 musician’s high repute in London, but also boenuso the recipients of it, not many in number, have exclusively been people of high musical fame. Those recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s gold modal include, for instance, Brahms, Bulow, Rubcnstoin, Gounod, Tictjions, Joachin, Santloy, Elgar and Delius. A NEW. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS COMPOSITION. This concort was in other regards a Vaughan Williams' night, for tho programme contained his new Fantasia on Sussex Folk Songs, a work for orchestra and ’cello solo. Tho ’cello soloist was Cusals who had nothing more to play in this work than somo unattractivo folk songs. CASALS AND A BAX WORK. Otherwise the programme contained Mozart’s overture to “La Clemenza di Tito,” Schumann’s “Cello Concerto” and Bax’s Overture “Elegy and Rondo,” The concerto was a joy from beginning to end by reason of tho masterly performance of Casals. It is a work which gives the solo instrument a great deal more to do than is usual in concertos, so that the orchestra is rarely dominant on its own account, but for tho most part is emphoyod as a background for the ’collo. Casals was at his wonderful bust. He played with the utmost eloquence of statement, with a tone of exceeding beauty and a polish of phrasing that lifted every passage into distinction. What an artist Casals is 1 Arnold Bax, for some unaccountable roason is not on gecent London programmes as often ns ho deserves, has begun to enjoy more of that prominence for, besides this overture, “Elegy and Rondo,” on the philharmonic programme, his third symphony was the feature of the 8.8. U. Concert the following night. Tho former work greatly pleased its audience. It contains some beautiful music, and it is characteristic Bax in its combination of subtle shadings of harmonic toxturo and their skilful orchestral colouring. Ths concert, too, had an interest of another kind in the fact that tho orchestra played as its final number the overture to William Tell, in commemoration of the Philharmonic Society’s first performance of that overture, then now, one hundred years ago in March, 1830. It is only to be hoard nowadays at the hands of a London orchestra, at one of the Saturday night promenade concorts. But, all tho same, Rossini’s brilliant pieec gave on this occasion every sign of unabated life. 8.8. C. CONCERT.

At the 8.8. C. Concert, Sir Henry Wood conducting, there was the Der Freischutz overture, L’avros midi d’on Faune, Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, with Backhaus, as soloist, and the Third Symphony, of Arnold Bax. Bax’s symphony is undoubtedly the work of a fine mind, and an imaginative faculty of unusual range. The imagination in it,’ indeed, constrains it less to continuity of expression than to shifting patterns of music each of them presenting itself as a completed thought. There is tho customary wealth of harmonic resource which so often distinguishes the composer’s music, and something of his customary obscurity, while now and again the work rises to an impresssive level of beauty. It ends with a short epilogue of soft music, in which Bax achieves a really exquisite sequenco of lovely sounds. LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. The London Symphony Orchestra gave one of its best concerts of the season on tho third Sunday afternoon in March, at tho Albert Hall, when, with Coates conducting, it presented a Wagner programme. It was a plebiscite programme chosen by voters among tho Sunday afternoon concert audiences, and as it contained such unfailing things as the Meistersinger overture, the Tristan prelude and Liobostod, the Siegfried Idyll, tho Tannhauser Yenusborg music, otc., there was no question of its enjoyment by the large company present. The Albert Hall has it virtues as well as its disadvantages as an auditorium. One of its virtues is to be found in its capacity to lesson for the audience the effect of any excessive vigour that is in an orchestra’s performance. Ooates is essentially vigorous, but even his exuberance, and the orchestra’s response to it, were never so obtrusive as they can be, for example, in Queen’s Hall. And there was otherwise somo beautiful examples of the quieter music. This concort well justified itself as an attraction of special quality. BACKHAUS. Backhaus, now in Australia, gave his farewell recital to Londoners in the same week. His programme on this occasion presented Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, and No. 2 of the opus 31 group of Beethoven Sonatas, as his big numbers, with groups of Schubert Debussy and Chopin. It was perhaps unusual to find at this hearing of Backhaus that his technical facility and hi 3 power of tono were less conspicuously his attributes as a pianist than'the delicacy of nuance he achieved in the Debussy items. During his Australian tour it is possible that he will be bettor valued for the expressiveness of his tono colour in music of that calibre than for the phenomenal technical feats which ho is always so easily able to accomplish. CHAMBER MUSIC. Tho Buda-Pesth Quartet also gave one of their famous concerts, their programme consisting of Beethoven in E flat. Ravel in A minor and Mendelssohn in C minor —a nicely planned variety of qualities and styles. This quartet is an exoellent combination of players, boing thoroughly at home and as one, and with that unanimity of performance they unite a very on joyablo artistry, made up of musicianly insight and finish of method. MUSICAL ACTIVITIES IN PALMERSTON NORTH. After a year of inaction, tho Palmerston North Orchestral Society is again hard at work under the direction of Mr George Ellwood, a ’cellist of considerable repute, who, originally of Christchurch, has been domiciled in Wellington for somo years. Schubert’s unfinished symphony is again to be the chief work upon which the society will devote its efforts at its first concert of tho season. A NEW CHORAL SOCIETY.

The Palmerston North choir, which last year was hurriedly gathered together in order to produce Mendelssohn’s St. Paul, is now a properly constituted body with president, vice-presidonts, secretary, a board of trustees, committeo and conductor. The Mayor, Mr A. J. Graham, has accepted tho position of president; Mr C. W. Teppett is the secretary; and Mr J. Holmes Runnicles is the conductor, “Hiawatha,” by Coleridge Taylor, is the work in rehearsal. It is proposed to give the work in its three sections at succeeding concorts. Thus Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast will be the chief work at the first concert. The committeo in charge of arrangements is composed of Mrs Paterson, Mrs Bridcfn-Jones, Mrs Hunt, Mrs Borresen, Mr J. Kershaw, Mr C. W. Teppett and tho conductor, Mr J. Holmes Runnicies, who is chairman.