DUNEDIN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22066, 23 September 1933, Page 13

DUNEDIN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The easy intimacy with their work that has been attained by the members of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra under the baton of M. de Rose has given the conductor a very wide choice of material and enabled him to lend considerable diversity to his programmes. For the next concert, which is to be presented in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall next Wednesday evening, M. de Rose has concentrated upon two schools —the Russian and the French—and the assisting artists have followed suit. Tschaikowsky’s music has been selected for the first part of the concert and that of French composers in Cesar Franck, Saint-Saens, Martini, Vieuxtemps, and Massenet for the second part. The first part will consist of only three offerings, which are in themselves a programme—the Symphony in B minor (Pathetique) of Tschaikowsky, the first movement from the same composer’s piano concerto (B flat minor), and the vocal solo “Volga Boatmen’s Song.” The last two will have Miss Sybil Baker and Mr R. Duerdea respectively as the soloists. The “Pathetic” Symphony is one of the great compositions of the greatest century of music. Its mournfulness is relieved by some passages of the most poignant character, and it is one of the real tests of orchestra! skill. Of niore brilliant character is the piano concerto, in which orchestra and solo instrument are pitted against each other in a “ duel to the death.” Miss Sybil Baker, it is said, presents the piano part with intriguing skill. The second part will be opened with Cesar Franck’s "Pastorale,” and will embrace the brilliant violin solo “Fantiasie Appassionato,” with Miss Ngaio Garland as soloist; the ,overture “Thedre” for the orchestra, and Saint-Saens’s famuos Barcarolle, “A Night in Lisbon,” with further vocal solos by Mr Duerdeu and Miss K. Gecrin.