MUSIC BY THE FURLONG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 17

MUSIC BY THE FURLONG

Handel's "Concerti Grossi"

‘ago-that is to say in 1739Handel was alive, very popular, and still composing as hard as he could go. During that year he wrote twelve Concerti Grossi. When we talk of music being turned out by about two hundred years

the yard, we usually imply that it is poor stuff. But Handel was one (and Rossini another) of the great composers who could turn out music by the furlong, music of fine quality, which we still want to play and hear in 1940.

The twelve Great Concertos (Concerti Grossi) are a case in point. Handel wrote them in a month. They are not Concertos in the modern meaning, that is, works written for a soloist and an orchestra. Handel used an orchestra of stringed instruments and _ harpsichord and divided it into two groups of players. One group _consisted of _ two

violins ana a viOlOtl-~ cello, and the other comprised the rest of the orchestra. These groups are played off one. against another, all through the work, having alternate cuts at the music, so to speak, and sometimes combined. These Grand Concertos are _ robust, jolly things, and far more free and_= unlicensed in form than was the kind of work which presently took their place-the Symphony. They delighted the Londoners of Handel’s' day who went to Vauxhall Gardens for _ light

music and not. so light refreshment — and an occasional argument — and they will delight. the radio listeners of our own day. Listeners to 2YA will have a different Handel Grand Concerto every Tuesday night at 8 p.m. until the. series is played through. They will be performed by the NBS String Orchestra under Maurice Clare. The next will be on August 27.