At A Celebrity Concert

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 191, 19 February 1943, Page 9

At A Celebrity Concert

| a rare experience, it is not surprising that we arrive late, stamp down the aisle, and sometimes applaud in the wrong places. All these things happened at the Friedman-Tyrer concert in Wellington last week, but the offences were innocent. We felt the fragile hush of Delius’s "The Walk to the Paradise Garden," and if we destroyed it with thunderous applause, we meant no more harm than the attendants who turned out the house lights so that those who had brought scores couldn’t use them. Yes, some of us are a little raw. We were surprised when the conductor had his glasses wiped by one of the orchestra, but we surrendered to the music when it was not too profound. We frankly liked the fireworks, too, so we didn’t forget to applaud (at least twice), the Tchaikovski Concerto. Mr. Friedman played nothing else comparable in scale to the concerto, but the audience were obviously delighted when he played a group of his own pieces with an ease and delicacy seldom heard in New Zealand. Perhaps it is because such things don’t happen to us often that we are as appreciative as we know how to be-and then ask for more. But most of us are sensationalists at heart. We ask for rhythm and speed before subtlety, for "The Bartered Bride" Overture in preference to "A Walk to the Paradise Garden." After all, although we hear music at home, at the pictures, and in milk bars, we have developed no con-cert-going tradition, and therefore little discrimination. ie a country where concert-going is

But we are most willing to learn. When a musician like Friedman pays us a visit, we go to hear him, applaud his art, and hope he will remember that we are still a young country and come back again. Meantime, we have a symphony orchestra that maintains a standard previously unknown here. We may not know how to express our appreciation, but it is there.

T.