RECENT MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 169, 18 September 1942, Page 10

RECENT MUSIC

wo. 28:

By

MARSYAS

have begun their rounds of the radio stations — a Divertimento for Strings and two Horns (No. 10 in F) by Mozart, and a Sonata for four hands by Paul Hindemith. Soon they will both be as familiar to the regular listener as Prokofieff’s Classical Symphony or The Hut Sut Song. This is one of the virtues of our modern way of getting to know music. In a land of new releases of recorded music

no radios, a copy of a piece of music might arrive, be inspected, and then‘in the case of a modern work-hbe shied away from all but the most zealous enthusiasts. But in a land of loudspeakers, a@ set of shining new discs arrives, with many duplicates, and: programme organisers at the radio stations, eager for something new, snatch them up at once. Thus a modern composition gets a kind of legitimate "plugging" such as it never got in pre-radio days. This is an excellent thing, and as I ‘say it may be regarded as one of the ‘virtues of our system. For it is most important that the ordinarily musical listener should get more or less used to

the sound of the musical language of his contemporaries, so that when a compatriot turns out to be a composer, the listener will understand and at once what he is up to and what he is worth, and will be able to say what he thinks, %* * * HE Mozart Divertimento is unmercifully treated at the hands of Eugene Ormondy and some American orchestra, It sounds altogether un-Mozartean. Written originally for a small force of strings and two horns, and possibly intended for out-of-doors performances, the music is here performed by a battery of strings such as would grace a symphony by Mahler. The balance between strings and horns is not the only loss-all the clarity of Mozart’s writing is destroyed, and a smooth mushy surge is substituted. In tutti passages it’s hard to know whether the horns have been momentarily "augmented" to eight, to give that immense body to the tone, or whether a couple of dozen double-basses are striving to live up to their nickname of bullfiddle. All this may seem to be of little account until you ask yourself how the reverse process would be received-say a performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony by a force of 18 players (that is, one person to every separate part on the score). The proportions between the forces employed are just as important as the notes allotted to them. Mozart gives as much thought to the question of how many instruments he will use on one note as he does to the question of whether the note shall be F or F sharp (i.é., very little, because it will inevitably be one thing, and not another). And since we fulfil his intentions in the one respect (so far as it is possible, in these days of French Pitch, Concert Pitch, Philharmonic Pitch, International Pitch, and the rest) it might be reason‘able to fulfil them elsewhere. Eugene Ormondy ¢onducts from memory, so we are told. In this case it is from his memory of Berlioz, certainly not of Mozart. BS * ae As for the Hindemith Sonata for four hands, it is of some interest, since it is only four years old, and four years is a very. short time for a new composition to get here; further, because it is played by Jesus Maria Sanroma and Paul Hindemith himself, hitherto known to us (apart from his fame as a composer) as a wiola player. I can’t say that it gave me particular pleasure to listen: to it, but I can say that I think it’s worthwhile music. The first movement opens without what is known as "statemeht" of subject matter, but rather with insinuations, which work their way into the "steadily flowing" music until, by and by, they are urgent declamations. Paul Hindemith’s themes are readily grasped and remembered by the ear because, although the harmonic context so often destroys sense of key yet the rhythmical structures are always those of "tonal" music. Tonality, or the principle of making music proceed from one harmonic stopping-place to another and on-again, produces the rhythmic figures and forms with which we are familias. (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) Certain modern music strives to eliminate from its existence both the harmonic and the rhythmic bases with which we are familiar. Hindemith, by removing only one, and that one not entirely, leaves the floundering listener with at least one lifeline. And in the end he always finds his way to a common chord, which is consoling. The brief, brilliant little scherzo which is the middle movement of this sonata gives Senor Sanroma occasion to feel, in more than one place, that he is playing Gershwin again. Just a few bars from the end of it he might be excused for thinking he'is back in the opening bars of the Rhapsody in Blue. The upper register of the piano used in the recording has an extraordinary quality of tone, or else Sanroma has had a set of detachable tack-hammers made to fit his fingers. It is a most unpleasant, stinging sound that he makes. ALKING of Divertimenti, there are ‘22 such works by Mozart, and 13 others going by the name either of serenade or cassation; and Haydn wrote about 70 divertimenti, serenades, cassations and nocturnes. Four or five from each would be a mere drop out of the --

bucket, and they would greatly enrich the repertoire of our various broadcasting orchestras. Works for strings and two horns especially would be a happy means of broadening the scope of the programmes. * * * Two weeks ago in writing of a concert layed from 3YA I referred vaguely to "The Southland Boys", imagining that had already them properly "The Southland Boys’, High School Choir". This latter is the actual name of the choir, and is the one I should have used.