HIGH STANDARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26842, 5 August 1948, Page 6

HIGH STANDARD

TECHNICAL COLLEGE CONCERT LARGE AUDIENCE DELIGHTED Last night a large audience in the Town Hall heard the musicians of the Dunedin Technical College presenting a fine, varied programme of music in several different media. It is impossible to hear these concerts without being impressed both by the present standard of musicianship revealed on the part of the young performers, and by the immense potential value of this college activity to a healthy musical life in New Zealand. The college pupils-themselves are enabled to participate in the richly satisfying experience of concerted music-making; and the various adult musical organisations of Dunedin and the country generally must profit by recruitment from the ranks of the competent, and more-than-competent ex-pupils of the college. The National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra itself has valued players who gained early orchestral experience at the college.

The prime mover of this efflorescence of musical activity, Dr T. Vernon Griffiths, has been succeeded by men who have shown the same infectious keenness that marked his pioneer work. Mr T. E. Staples is to be congratulated on a remarkably fine job of training and conducting. The training was manifested last night in a high standard of performance, by the choirs and instrumental ensembles, and the arduous duty of conducting such large forces did not find Mr Staples wanting., The quality and the amount of work done by the other members of the college’s musical staff was also patent. The concert opened with three overtures for Massed Orchestra, which included the youngest of the players. After some initial raggedness in the opening bars, the large orchestrasettled down to give a very satisfying account of Mr A. H. Pettitt’s effective arrangement of Gretay’s “ Lucile ” Overture, and followed this with overtures on English and Welsh melodies, also admirably dealt with. The Senior String Orchestra played a suite of five short Handel movements and Thiman’s “ Gayton Suite.” In the first of these, some uncertainty of intonation marred the general effect, but in the Thiman work the players showed more confidence and achieved a real distinction of tone and phrasing. The full Senior Orchestra gave a neat and attractive performance of a “Rustic Dance” by Woodhouse. The Symphony Orchestra rounded off the instrumental part of the programme in two short works with organ. The first of these, “ Trumpet Tune and Two Airs,” by Purcell, contains a solo part for trumpet, exacting on account of its highish tessitura, and this was performed with the proper brilliance by the soloist. The other work was Walford Davies’s, “Solemn Melody, the performance of which was notable for some rich, warm string tone and ■an impressive dynamic range. The Symphony Orchestra was also associated with some of the choral items. The military band, under the direction of Mr L. S. White, played Bachs chorale prelude. “Mortify Us by Thy Grace,” and the Minuet and Trio from Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony with surprising neatness and polish. _ There was very little of. that faulty intonation among the reeds that is the curse of the military band in New Zealand. The most impressive thing about the choral singing was not the quality of the tone, though that was Very good; nor was it the attentiveness and welldrilled precision of the singers, though that, too, was superb. It was the vivid, even startling, clarity of the words; even in the more complex choral sections not a consonant was dropped or slurred over. The provision of words in the programme was quite superfluous, which is a situation unusual enough among choirs, even m straightforward chordal music, to make one sit up and take notice. The massed choir was heard in arrangements of “John Peel,” “Vive I’Amour, You Gentlemen of England,” "The Miller of the Dee,” “ Children of Everyman,' and three hymns. The feature of the massed choral work was the first performance of Dr Griffiths’s setting of the “ Cantate Domino, dedicated to Professor V. E. Galway. The choir did full justice to this fresh and triumphal setting of the ancient words. The Treble Choir In four parts, with Elva McKeich and Malcolm Robertson as soloists, 'sang Holst’s arrangement of “ Lord Who Hast Made Us for Thine Own.” . , So glorious was the web of sound that the audience very naturally demanded an encore. Df Galway at the organ was associated with the choir in several of the items, and his customary mimcianly playinp was an important element m the success of these works. Miss JLogie and Miss E. McKinlay ,at the grand piano provided a pleasing accompaniment for ,several of the choral numbers.