"ARTISTIC ANACHRONISM"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

"ARTISTIC ANACHRONISM"

INTRODUCTION OF CADENZAS A TRENCHANT CRITICISM Paul VinogradofT, whoso return concert during the 'week was a delightful musical experience, included in his playing of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody a cadenza of considerable interest. Nevertheless the introduction of . cadenzas, which are in effect the projection of the player's own personality into the composition, aro being assailed on all sides

in England. Writing in the London Daily Telegraph, Mr. F. Bonavia remarks that if an actor, after some 30 lines or so of " To be or not to be," were suddenly to improvise on the text and tell us what lie has thought about the pangs of despised love, about the law's delay, and the insolence of office, Shakespearean scholars would surely protest. And if the improvisation became an accepted custom of the stage, "featured" and boldly announced in the programme, the public, too, would rise in protest. Yet this is what happens whenever a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Haydn concerto is played, and no performer has ever shown any consciousness of error, Mr. Bonavia points out. Just as the argument is about to be wound up the cadenza comes to arrest the natural course of events; Beethoven must wait while the performer proceeds to show us what he would have done had he been the author of the concerto.

The majority of performers to-day are content to leave the responsibility to others. Unable to improvise themselves they borrow the improvisation of others. Cadenzas by Yieuxtemps added to Bee-

Mr. George Buckley, Auckland City bandmaster, who has been appointed adjudicator at the South Auckland Band Contest Union's first contest at Hamilton on Easter Saturday and Monday.

thoven's violin concerto are equivalent to, say, improvisations by the late SixGeorge Alexander added to Shakespeare. Such a thing would be unthinkable on tho stage; but the musical impertinence is accepted as a convention hallowed by time and by tho practice of the great. Anything and everything is allowed to the " improviser " of cadenzas. If ho is gifted ho will probably combine themes in counterpoint or embellish them with new harmonies regardless of the fact that these harmonic, and contrapuntal devices must have also occurred to the composer, who promptly dismissed them as unsuitable to the character of his music. If the improviser has no skill in the grammar of composition he may resort to ""scales. If all the scales used for this purpose were added together they would reach from here to the moon.

Cadenzas are the legacy of an age which worshipped improvisation. The audiences which first submitted to the ordeal liked the experience. They had plenty of leisure, they appreciated virtuosity for its own sake. Tho modern audience has no leisuro and no sympathy with displays of mere technique. Improvisers to-day aro relegated to the music hall. But cadenzas endure for ever.