MUSIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22911, 19 June 1936, Page 20

MUSIC

NOTES AND RECORDS

By Aixegro,

One remembers especially from the Christchurch Harmonic Choir’s performance of last Saturday the imaginative singing of “ Falstaff and the Fairies,” the electric finish of “ Welcome Yule,” the interpretation of such things as tho ballad “ King Arthur,” tho control of the male voices when they nang alone, and the effect of ouch things as “The Galway Piper ” and the climaxes in “ Thu Rio Grande.” It is a pity that we did not hoar sonic Bach or the line writing of Gustav Holst, such as we were privileged to hear last time the choir came to Dunedin. In 1905 Sibelius wrote from London: “ I was taken charge of by Henry Wood, and mot many people who subsequently did a great deal to make my music hotter known in England, among them Mrs Rosa Newmarch and Ernest Newman. I discovered tho error in the very general impression that Englishmen have no natural talent for music. On the contrary, they are very capable musicians, although in their splendid isolation they do not trouble to advertise themselves.” The violin was tho instrument of Sibelius. One perhaps does not realise how seriously and for how long it was his intention to become a virtuoso. “ Everyone has his life’s tragedy,” he said. “Mine was that I wanted to he a celebrated violinist at any price. Since I was 15 I played my violin for 10 years practically from morniug till night. . . . It was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training . . . too. late.

“The composer for me, above all others,” said Sibelius, “is Beethoven. I am affected as powerfully by the human side of him as by bis music.

. . . Everything was against him ami yet he triumphed.” As for latter-day music: “There has been too much experimenting, and unaffected feeling has not always been allowed to come into its own.” Then comes this searching remark; "The error of our days has long been its faith in polyphony. It has seemed as if people imagined that the whole had beteome better by placing nonentities on top of each other.” The Lener Quartet began a Beethoven cycle some time ago. This quartet has received a trophy in the form of a gold gramophone disc to celebrate the sale of its 1.000.000 th gramophone record.

Tho British Music Society will hold its last meeting for the 1035-1936 season to-morrow evening in Bogg’s concert room. A programme of songs and twopiano music wdll be presented. The Symphony Orchestra concert on Wednesday was the moans of introducing to Dunedin audiences the young girl pianist Wynne Lorraine Simpson, from Christchurch. She played Liszt’s first "Piano Concerto in E Hat major” with an easy technique and a musical interpretation. Orchestral items were Smetana’s " Ultava ” and “Andromeda and tho Storm King,” by Augusta Mary Holmes, the ballet music from “ Faust ” (Gounod) and “Magueda,” by do Rose. Miss Angela Hendry, the vocal soloist, sang “ Far Away Lies the Land,” from Mignon," and the old Ed. German favourite “Love is Meant to Make us Glad.” A French critic recently described “ Rio Grande ” as “ a sort of long rhapsody with choir combined with a piano part.” Another French writer said of it that it was “ a curious work which keep# up our interest all the time.” Grove’s Dictionary gives 1839 as the year of Antonio Gomez’s birth,, hut recent research has proved that he was born in 1830, so that tho centenary will be celebrated this year (says an English paper). Gomez is, of course, unknown to the present generation. A typical “stepson of music,” ho enjoyed fame, though never wealth, in his lifetime, thanks to the success of one opera—- “ Guarauy ” —which outlasted all the other operas Gomez wrote. Noted recently was the fact that British Broadcasting salaries to orchestral players are higher than those offered by other organisations in England. Hence employment under the 8.8. C. is eagerly sought. Even there, however, tho orchestral player’s lot is not ideal. There is no certainty of continued employment and there is no pension at the end. In this respect the Halle Orchestra, of Manchester, is better placed. It lias a pension fund which cost the promoters nothing. Players leaving the orchestra after even a few years’ service receive a portion of the money contributed towards the pension. A concert at the end of the season goes to swell tho fund.

The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, beside having recorded Percy Grainger’s “ Molly on the Shore ” and his arrangement of “Londonderry Air,” has also put on a disc “ Shepherd’s Hey ” and “ Country Gardens.” Heifetz recordings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra are Mozart’s “A major Concerto,” "D minor Concerto,” by Vieuxtemps, and Glazounov’s “A minor Concerto,” which record has “ Meditation,” by Glazouuov, on it also.