Familiar Beethoven

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 6

Familiar Beethoven

By

C. FOSTER BROWNE

The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, directed byPeter Zwartz, gave a Beethoven programme to a reasonably large audience in the Town Hall on Saturday evening. The programme, often heard and familiar to me from my youth, began with Paulene Smith playing Beethoven’s Romance No. 2 in F for Violin and Orchestra.

She did so with charming, poetic sense and tone and her phrasing was astute and skilful. She created accord with the audience and, with the orchestra, set a fine atmosphere for the larger works to follow.

Diedre Irons, a Canadian pianist now resident in New Zealand, was heard to mag-

nificent advantage in a performance with the orchestra of Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G major. Miss Irons has the panache, dash, illuminating brightness of tone and imagination, and command of situation needed for concerto playing of high rank. She began in a mood of poetic sensibility which wafted gently from the solo piano. At every level of expression, even in the strongest forte, she kept the poetic spirit of the work, decorating it richly with splendid colouring. She kept a firm pulse in the slow movement, eschewing sentimentality, and gave scintillation in the last movement, holding all details in firm control throughout the whole performance.

The orchestra, under Mr

Zwartz’s helpful and strong direction, showed high capability and left a strong impression of improvement. Attention to variation of approach and of expressive variation when the same motif gets a number of playings, one immediately following on the others, will bring interesting improvements. In Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony there was smoothness and precision in starting and stopping, together with commendable accuracy. Although so well known, the work gave forth a companionable atmosphere and the various levels of volume had been carefully prepared. The conceit was a pleasing one, holding out high hopes for what will follow as the season progresses,