EXCITING DAYS FOR MUSICIANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 60, 16 August 1940, Page 16

EXCITING DAYS FOR MUSICIANS

Greta Ost And Dorothy Davies Form Duo

HE other day The Listener had a pleasant surprise. We have often interviewed solo musicians-pian-ists, violinists, singers, and on occasions even the exponents of those more exotic instruments, such as marimbas and xylophones and glockenspiels. But it was a pleasant change when two musicians arrived together: Greta Ost, of Czechoslovakia, and Dorothy Davies, of New Zealand. Greta Ost has been in this country only a few weeks: Dorothy Davies has been well known as a pianist in New Zealand for some time, and has done much broadcasting work. Dorothy Davies met Greta Ost, who plays the ’cello, soon after her arrival here, and very soon they had decided to team up and do duo work together. Greta Ost, who has the knack of making the English language sound more musical than it is, speaks Czech, Polish, Russian, German, and French as well. "You will agree with me," she said, "when I say that ’cello is one of the beautifulst instruments." We agreed. "When I first started to play,’ she went on, "I began, as many other musicians do, with the piano, but very soon changed for the ’cello. Oh, yes, this was all in Prague, and I studied at the music school there, and then later went to Vienna." It was in Vienna that Greta Ost met Gloria Wedgwood, daughter of the Rt. Hon. Col. J. C. Wedgwood, and through their interest in music, the two soon formed a warm friendship. Engaged by the Czechoslovakian Broadcasting Company, Greta Ost joined the Macuzinsky-Arkadjeff-Ost Trio, and at the same time held the post of ’Cello Professor at the Masaryk Music Institute of Moravia. She has had broadcasting experience over a long period, over the Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Bratislava radio stations, All this time she was gaining valuable experience playing under the batons of internationally-known conductors, and when the Moravian Trio, with Professor Karel Holub, was created, the Masaryk Festival Committee arranged a _ tour through the Republic. Greta Ost also

toured through Holland and Belgium before the britzkrieg struck those two countries. Although she was later one of the victims of that wave of aggression, she prefers not to dwell on the terrors of that time, but says briefly: "In March, 1938, Hitler jumped into Czechoslovakia. We left for Poland and arrived, after a terrible time of horrors, in England." When she arrived in England, the Wedgwood family took her under their wing, and opened for her the musical world of London and Cambridge. She had the good fortune to play with Mark and Jan Hambourg, among others. Dorothy Davies's Experiences Dorothy Davies needs little introduction to listeners. As a pianist she has broadcast on many occasions from main stations. But she also has had exciting days. She studied at the Sydney Conservatorium under Frank Hutchens, When she went to England, it was to go to the Royal College of Music and hard work-hard work which resulted in her coming third in the teachers’ course there. Then came a pleasant time of working with Anthony Tudor and Marie Rambert at the Ballet Club, Yet Dorothy Davies’s most exciting time on the other side of the world was not in England, but in the peaceful village of Tremezzo on Lake Como, in Italy. Here, in the Villa Ginetta, Artur Schnabel and his wife held musical court, and from all over the world came students and artists to study under these two brilliant people. For Miss Davies it was rather like a passport to wonderland; there came a stream of musiclovers, known and unknown. Conductor Bruno Walter, the Busches, composers Hindemith and Dranak, violinists Feuermann and Goldberg; critics and poets, all ascended the 132 stone steps that led literally almost, to Parnassus. Now Dorothy Davies and Greta Ost have laid their plans-to tour New Zealand playing works for ’cello and piano, Their first broadcast will be with a selection of numbers by Chopin, Gluck, Foerster and Granados, at 8.32 p.m. on Monday, August 19, from 2YA Wellington. ‘ m