ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2867, 4 September 1916, Page 3

ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

A great debt of gratitude is duo to the Wellington Professional Orchestra, which month after month gives the public a real taste of the superb beauty and noble grandeur that pulsates in tlio music of tho master composers. The programmes which havo been submitted by the Orchestra, during tho current season, have been models of their kind!—real models when the difficulty and expense of obtaining new music at this remote end of tlio world is considered. Fortunate indeed are musiclorcrs to hear such an agglomeration of (ine music so soundly interpreted and so well played, as was heard at Llis Majesty's Theatre last evening. Small wonder that the theatre was full. Tlio Orchestra gavs infinite pleasure last season when it added Schubert's divine ''Unfinished Symphony" to its creditablo- repertoire, and it added to its laurels by a very admirable performance of this ''noble fragment" as it is often called. Mr. Bloy and his able band appeared to havo probed deep into tho ethereal emotional beauties of the Symphony, and the smoothness, delicacy, and precision that characterised the playing throughout was delightful. There was confidence in ovcry lead. The 'cellos are a much-im-proved section, and the wood-wind division aro to be commended for tho quality of tone and smoothness of execution that characterised their delicate work. Even the hatted cornets managed' io get somo of the muffled sweetness of tlio French horns, that are always such a loss in symphonic work. Such a performance would earn commendation anywhere en this side of tho globe. In direct contradistinction in style to the tender pathos of the "Unfinished' - was tho bold, clamourous Prelude to Act 111 of "Lohengrin,"- which gave tho brass division a fine opportunity of showing its powers in declamatory inus'ic. It was a most inspiriting performance of a noted Wagnerian excerpt. The overture to Wagner's opera "Rienzi" was played with notable care and finish. Leoncavallo'. 1 ) "Spanish Suite" is a curiously uneven composition.' The first movement. . "Sovillana," struck the Spanish character most picturesquely—a gay dance movement . with clacking castanets and the jingle of tlio tambourine, but there were freakish passages in the other two .movements that were not so effective. Tlio programme 'also included a melodious idyll, "Dawn," by Watt, and the overture to Yon Suppe's "Pique Dame." Mr. Herbert Bloy conducted with his accustomcd skill and insight. !