NEW INTEREST IN HAYDN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 9

NEW INTEREST IN HAYDN

There seems something of a revival lately on the choral music of Haydn. A few years ago the name Haydn on the programme of a choral society meant that either "The Creation” or “The Seasons” was being performed. Nowadays it is just as likely to be a Mass or other more formal religious work. The “Nelson Mass,” which the Royal Christchurch Musical Society will sing on Saturday, is a case in point A recording of it by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1962 may have done something to increase its popularity, for to recent months it has been performed by the Orpheus Choir to Wellington, at the Festival Hall in London on May 1, where the New Philhannonia Chorus under Guilin! drew a full house and were televised, and again to Wellington this week by Victoria University. The R.C.M.S. gave the first Christchurch performance two years ago when it was very well received. All this points to the recent popularity of the work. That the “Te Deum” is utterly neglected is borne out by the fact that in three biographies of the composer it is mentioned only once and then only in passing. Further evidence comes from the full score which Robert FieldDodgson will conduct from. It appears to be a photostat copy of the Breitkopf and Hartel original published in 1805 and there is no evidence of it having been used before. The full score of the Vaughan Williams work has inscribed in pencil on it “Three Choirs Festival/Sumsion 1959.” This score is handwritten and the lack of markings of the type habitually put into scores by conductors underlines the infrequency of its performance.

TWO SOLOISTS.—Jean Williams, a Wellington soprano, and Ngaire Johnston, a Christchurch mezzo-soprano, who will

sing with the Royal Christchurch Musical Society on Saturday.