RECENT MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 172, 9 October 1942, Page 2

RECENT MUSIC

No. 31,

by

MARSYAS

LAMOURS for the complete Ninth Symphony of Beethoven have been answered by 3YA with The Ninth, the Whole Ninth, and Nothing but, etc. And now it would be interesting to know just how many of the clamourers managed to keep their attention right on it for the whole 75 minutes or so. They know now what @ feat of listening it is. The opportunity is still awaited to compare Stokowski’s version of the symphony with a version made under a conductor whose imaginative scope is more nearly related to Beethoven's. One thing is certain-" Mill-yuns dawalling," with a grossly bisyllabic pronunciation of "dwell," will never do for Schiller’s "Millionen" (the German word is in four syllables). Bg me * CORRESPONDENT has been puzzled by the statement that "a piano cannot be considered as a musical instrument (sic) because G sharp and A flat ate played on the same note and cannot be separated." This is not the place for the mass of information on this subject that can be found in any public library (in Scholes’s Oxford Companion, or the Encyclopedia Britannica), but if "Hearing" still wonders, after looking them up, whether "the slight difference of frequency" (7 cycles) can be distinguished by the human ear, he should listen to Bronislaw Huberman playing the violin in something that must re semble what came to be known last century as "the Joachim mode," namely, a systematic out-of-tuneness effected by an ear that is sensitive to the true values of notes. Exploring further, he may hear a record (in the Columbia History of Music by Ear and Eye) of part of a Duo for two violins in the Sixth tone system by Alois Haba, a Moravian who claims to have trained himself to sing five divisions of the semitone. There is also a recording extant of a piece by Julian Carrillo (a Mexican) using 16th tones, with stringed instruments, and even a singer. ES * % HE Royal Christchurch Musical Society put on the best concert programme I’ve-seen for a long time. Three choruses from Alexander's Feast (Handel) were unfortunately a bit highflying for the sopranos and tenors, but nearly got going well. A contralto, Evelyn Coote, sang five Elizabethan love songs, including one by the composer-poet-doctor Thomas Campion, She has a fine true ear and a rich smooth voice without | brilliance, very well suited to the songs, which to me are more beautiful than anything any local singer has done since Monteverdi was last on the air. A choral fantasia on airs from the Beggar’s Opera suited the choir better than the Handel. Thomas E. West has a voice as strong as a trumpet, and uses it very musically. On occasions like this, one can see how a real love of good music will make good musicans out of ordinary New Zealanders like ourselves, but I don’t suppose we shall have another concert like it for a long time. I can smell Elijah in the summer winds, and I think St. Paul is hover« ing somewhere about too.