NEW MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 135, 23 January 1942, Page 13

NEW MUSIC

First Performances In Dominion

performed for the first time in New Zealand shortly by the NBS Orchestra, under Andersen Tyrer, and three major works will have their first performances itt either Australia or New Zealand, Mr. Tyrer told The Listener in an interview. S ee interesting music will be Another "unfinished" symphony by Schubert is one of the most interesting of the works to be presented. It is a late Symphony in E Minor which was neglected by the composer after .four movements had been sketched out in short score, and 110 bars had been orchestrated. The manuscript was left to the composer’s brother, who gave it to Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn wanted to finish it but was prevented ‘by his death, and his brother gave it to Sir George Grove. Felix Weingartner finished the scoring in 1935, leaving eaeoud bert’s 110 bars intact, and it is this version that will be played here shortly. Two works for strings alone, a Divertimento by Bela Bartok, the contemporary Hungarian composer, and a Concertino by John’ Ireland, a_ living Englishman, will also have their first performances in this part of the world. Hamilton Harty’s swansong, "The Children of Lir," is another unusual work. There is a vocal part, for soprano, without words, and the singer is intended to have the same function as

an orchestral instrument. Though the work has no. text, it has a story, from the ancient Irish saga, half history, half fantasy, about the four beautiful children of Lir. It is known as "one of the three tragic stories of Erin." Then there will be Jaromir Weinberger’s colourful "Variations and Fugue on ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree.’" Weinberger, a Bohemian refu-.

gee on his way to America, went to the pictures in London, and saw the newsreel of the present’ King at a Boy Scout camp singing the song, with gestures. He liked the tune, and finished the work in America. Aaron. Copland’s "El Salon Mexico" presents Mr. Tyrer with a new prob-lem-how to provide an ocarina solo. The Listener's representative shook his head, regretted that he did not play the ocarina, and suggested that the jazz bands should be "scouted." "Mont Juic" was the outcome of a holiday spent by Lennox Berkely and

Benjamin Britten in Catalonia. They noted down folk tunes, and together arranged a suite of dances. Julius» Harrison’s "Autumn Landscape" and "Cornish Holiday Sketches" both for strings only, were heard from 2YA on Sunday, January 18. The second work mentioned is another holiday memory-Harrison took down tunes played to him on a tin-whistle, by a native of Cornwall. , Later, though nothing is definitely fixed yet, Mr. Tyrer’s .wn "Dr. Faustus" (chorus, orchestra, and orator reading Marlowe) will be played, and a string work by. Veracini.