MUSIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22367, 14 September 1934, Page 3

MUSIC

NOTES AND RECORDS By Allegro. The programme which is to be presented by the Otago branch of the Music Teachers’ Association at its recital, tomorrow evening is of _ unusual interest, as it consists entirely of works by Otago composers. These works comprise both songs and instrumental pieces, and no fewer than 11 composers will be represented. Thus ■there will be an entr’acte and a trio for piano, violin, and ’cello composed by J. C. Easton; vocal solos composed by F. C. Burry (Oamarul, L. Souness (Wyndham), D. A. Ballantyne, Tracy Moresby, W. H. Hopkins, T. Vernon Griffiths, and Sophie Hall; piano solos by Charles Martin and J. C. M'Evoy; a fantasia for orchestra and a part song for ladies by Mary Martin; and a trio for two violins and ’cello by Charles Martin. D. A. Ballantyne and Tracey Moresby will play the accompaniments to the songs which they have written, and J. C. M'Evoy will interpret his own composition. The Music Teachers’ Association is to be congratulated upon its initiative in providing a concert programme which consists exclusively of the works of composers in this part of New Zealand, and it is a matter for the highest satisfaction that there are musicians living in Otago capable of writing _ musical compositions, possessed of merit to warrant their public presentation, sufficiently numerous to constitute a complete programme. Richard Capell, writing in the Daily Telegraph on the “Character of Keys’ —an illusion cherished by Beethoven him-self-—asks why should Beethoven have considered D flat major as specially “maestoso ”? “ The chord of D flat major was for Beethoven like the cartouche of Death,” says Beethoven’s latest biographer,’ Marion Scott. Tho records contain various other instances of Bcetthoven’e attribution of some special virtue or character to a given key. In harbouring such fancies the prince of musicians was very human. How can there inherently be anything more "majestic” about D flat than any other key? A key is not a mode. “ The C major of this life,” said Browning in a famous phrase. Again, a fanciful phrase! Is there any reasonable foundation for the characterisation of keys—“A major amorous,” “D flat major majestic, and so on? Attempts at justification are often made, but they clo not go very far. The transposition of a' piece on the piano may, no doubt, make a difference in the effect—transposition, for instance, from Cto D flat. But (Mr Capell writes) the difference lies not between the two scales; It is due to the player s lighter touch on the shorter, narrower black notes of the keyboard. More considerable is the difference on stringed instruments between scales playable with open and those playable only with stopped strings. There are not many string quartets, and, so_ far as one remembers, not a single violin concerto in the key of E flat minor. No doubt E flat minor, with its stopped strings, is a ■darker key than E minor. In string music, that is to say. On the organ there is no difference except in pitch—no difference whatever in the scales themselves. How should there be? And yet from the prince of musicians to the child newly introduced to F sharp and B flat in a key-signature, all of us have our fancies, admitted or no, about the nature of keys. Even on the ground of undisputed fact there is exaggeration. Open strings make for bright kejs, we have allowed. But take a modulation in a string quartet from C major to E major. The now key comes with a burst of light, making C major seem lack-lustre. But in C all the strings of the quartet are open, while in E major 10 out of the 16 are stopped. The fact is (Me. Capell adds) that the real nature of a key—its character, colour, degree of brightness —is not, in spite of Beethoven s “majestic D flat,” inherent, but relative, depending on what goes before or after. Dr Percy Buck, King Edward prptessor of music, University of London, and musical adviser to the London County Council; speaking last month at the Oxford Summer Course in Music Teaching, said that for years lie had been trying to get educational authorities to believe that music does something for people that the world cannot afford to be without. And he claimed that there had in his own time been a marked improvement in music. When he was young, he said, if one passed a boy whistling in the street one knew perfectly well that he was whistling a music hall tune. “ But things have changed since then. Dr Buck went on. “Recently my wife was walking down a side street off High street, Kensington, and in the course of 100 yards passed three messenger boys. The first was whistling the opening bars of the ‘Tanuhauser’ overture, the second was singing the song ‘Where E’er You Walk,’ while the third was whistling the second subject of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.” _ “But that story,” Dr Buck said, ‘had a depressing sequel. A little time afterwards I sat at dinner next to a young lady who had been educated at Girton and at one of the big public schools. I told her the story, and she said, ‘What is the Unfinished Symphony?’ If I were charged-with improving the artistic education of the world I would not go among the poor. I would go among the rich and well educated. They are the people who need teaching.” Dr Buck then told of two elementary schoolboys riding on top of a tramcar in South London. As one of them handed the conductor his fare he said, in mock pathetic tones, “That is my last penny.” The conductor said, “All right, mate; I won’t take your penny. You were whistling the old ‘ Unfinished.’ ” Dr Buck said that he firmly believed that if the world were whistling the Unfinished Symphony instead of jazz the morale of the whole world would improve. An article in Music and Letters, signed Richard Powell, suggests a solution of the puzzle of Elgar’s “ Enigma ” Variations. Elgar, as everyone knows, declared many years ago that “ another and larger theme,” which is never heard, “ goes with ” the theme of the variations. Hence the title, “Enigma!” > Mr Powell, in his article, tells how he was led by deduction and elimination to conclude that the unheard theme in Elgar’s mind was none other than “Auld Lang Syne.” To “go with” the theme of the variations, the first strain of “Auld Lang Syne ” must be put into the minor, and there is also the fact that the corresponding strain of the theme is longer. Yet Mr Powell makes his theory fit. We cannot help feeling (says an English critic) that he makes out a plausible case —and regret it. There is a passage in the finale of the variations (at figure 65) which we shall now never be able to hear without thinking of “Auld Lang Syne.” The German newspapers announce the discovery, by Max Seiffert, of Leipzig, of a concerto by Mozart, in B flat, for bassoon or 'cello. Professor Seiffert puts the date of the composition at 1775-1777, and considers it to be one of the concertos written for Count Dnrnitz. In his opinion, it surpasses Mozart’s 177th bassoon concerto, particularly in the gay rondo.