RECENT MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 184, 31 December 1942, Page 2

RECENT MUSIC

(No, 43: By

Marsyas

HE most successful and enterprising experiment conducted by the NBS for a long time was the broadcast reading, on Sunday, December 13, of a poem written by Allen Curnow for the Tasman Tercentennial Celebrations, in company with music written for it by Douglas Lilburn, providing prelude and epilogue, and pieces interleaved between the poem’s three sections. The effect of the two works combined was most impressive — the music provided inescapable atmosphere for a poem which had something to say, The first of the four pieces-which are written for strings-had the adventurous feeling common to most of Mr. Lilburn’s music; and for providing incidental commentary on a poem commemorating Abel Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand, nothing could be more appropriate than music which is itself an adventure in discovery. The second. piece is full of vivid excitement, of the Sibelian variety. The third, coming just after that section of the poem which is related to the Golden Bay affray — "the day marred with murder" -has an awesome opening. The composer who, by dealing in the movement of sounds, can create a stilled hush has achieved one of those inscrutable contradictions that distiguish good

music from bad. The music which fulfilled the most dramatic point in this two-man work was almost as beautiful as silence itself. Andersen Tyrer, with the help of an occasional car-toot from the street outside the studio, conducted the NBS String Orchestra through an excellent and evidently well-prepared performance, except for the final piece which didn’t at any stage feel as if it had got properly under way. A. Eaton Hurley read the poem at a high level of excitement, but without a dangerous strain on the content. On the whole, it was a difficult task adequately done. A most conspicuous feature of the whole turnout was the smartness of the studio production. When a pause was required between voice and music, it was taken; when an instantarieous musical entry was required, the orchestra was ready. Many people would like to hear this work again-in the same form- and many people who, because it was apparently too late for inclusion in The Listener's advance programmes, did not know it was on the air at all, having heard from others the impressive effect it made, want the opportunity to hear it. A recording should be made and sent the rounds of the provincial stations, for there is no doubt that the making of "Landfall in Unknown Seas" is an important event in the story of our arts.