MUSICAL HOAX

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18503, 15 September 1934, Page 15

MUSICAL HOAX

VALUE OF A NAME SURPRISE FOR CRITICS LONDON. Sept. 3. Planned (o test his belief that musical success depended largely on the possession of a foreign name and that British composers were too harshly criticised, a five-year-old hoax on the musical world lias been revealed by Sir Henry Wood, the. noted director of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. _ Following the critical reception in 1929 of several of Sir Henry's compositions, the. orchestra at the Queen’s Hall concert performed Bach’s “Tocato and Fugue in D Minor” for the organ, transcribed for full orchestra, by “Paul Klenovsky. a young man understood to have lived in Moscow.” The work proved an immediate success and was lavishly praised, while requests for its repetition poured in with the result that it has -since been constantly performed. Answering frequent questions as to who Klenovsky was, Sir Henry wrote a programme note, stating. ‘‘lt is a very great pity that the young man died as the transcription shows a master's band in every bar.” The legend of Klenovsky’s genius grew and music-lovers mourned the early demise of one who, “in the opinion of his teacher, A. Glazouiiov, was one ot the greatest of the young masters of orchestration.” As recently as last Saturday, the 8.8. C. orchestra, performed the work, the programme referring to Klenovsky as “a young man whose dpalli. robbed Russian music of a brilliant recruit, and adding that the toccata and fugue were one of the most popular pieces in the Philadephiu Orchestra’s repertoire. It has now been disclosed that Sir Henry Wood and Klenovsky are identical.