Music Math Its Many Charms

NZ Truth, Issue 1202, 13 December 1928, Page 6

Music Math Its Many Charms

FIVE storeys above ths Wellington pavements is a little studio behind whose locked door one sometimes hears musio more soft and spontaneous than the tinned brand so popular m these days. ■ That means that John Bishop, conductor of the Wellington Choral Society, is trying over some new theme, or some old musical friend, onnis grand piano. . , , . To this country, last March, came a young Englishman who had spent years of patient study at the Royal College of Music, and who left London town to take up his conductor job m wild New Zealand. But he likes our country, and the National Art Gallery an.d, Museum scheme gave him some chance to try his hand, for he was m complete charge of the orchestral and musical side of the League of Nations Pageant. The music, he says, was an emotional expression of the pictures which the pageant will bring before our eyes. Five hundred voices, and many instruments, of high and low degree, chimed m at the most colorful moments. For example, when the nations brought their banners on to the stage, the five hundred songsters broke forth into ancient folk songs, German, British and French. Some of the little melodies had never before greeted New Zealand ears, and they added considerably to the general effect. Many splendid compositions wer* given their chance with the New Zealand public— from the "Danse Macabre" of Saint Saens to the "Hungarian March" of Berlioz. The thing was a musical adventure, and the fair-haired, rather diffident, but wholly enthusiastic conductor was the man to make it succeed.