HE LOST A VALUABLE LIBRARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 192, 26 February 1943, Page 10

HE LOST A VALUABLE LIBRARY

Experiences Of English Organist

HE loss of what was regarded as one of the best private collections of musical manuscripts in England, a Bliithner piano, an Old German ’cello, two valuable bows, and a lifetime’s collection of books and pictures was part of the battering Bernard F. Page, former Wellington City organist, received when he was bombed out of two successive homes he had in London, Not only that: Mr. Page was badly cut about the head. "Were you ill for long?" we asked him when we interviewed him for The Listener. "Tl? No, of course not. Nobody’s ill in London after an air raid-except the dying. People walk about the streets with broken arms and ribs and cracked heads, but they haven’t time to be ill, and, anyway, there would be no room for them in the hospitals." Mr. Page has returned to New Zealand to live in Auckland after an absence of 10 years overseas. Station 1YA will broadcast a recital by him on Friday evening, March 5. -Londoners Like Music "In London and in the provinces everywhere in England music audiences are bigger than ever before," he said. "Every Saturday and Sunday the Albert Hall is packed to the doors, and you’ve absolutely no hope of getting a seat--unless you are a ticket-holder-if you don’t queue up for hours. Last Good Friday I went there to hear part of the Bach St. Matthew Passion-I was working and wasn’t able to be there for the first part. That huge hall was packed with people who had already been listening for three hours in the morning. They had brought their sandwiches and had gone into Kensington Gardens at the lunch hour, to return for another three hours of music in the afternoon. These thousands of people-the Albert Hall seats more than 10,000-were sitting in absolute stillness listening to Bach. And there was no applause. Now that was Easter, 1942, and many of the men and women playing and singing that day were in uniform, just as most of the choirs and orchestras throughout the country are largely in uniform. "Are concerts in London mainly in the afternoons these days?"

¢ "No. They are in the afternoons and the evenings, and continue as late as the London County Council gives permission. When I left, the closing hour fixed by the L.C.C. was 9.0, and soon after that the streets would be empty of nearly all but pedestrians." "And those lunch-hour concerts given by Myra Hess?" "Yes, they are always crowded out, too. She goes on and on. She did it in the last war, and if there were another war in 40 years she’d probably still be doing it. She’s just a grand, wonderful woman. And then, of course, the Proms are more crowded than ever, too." Great Men Don’t Retire "There was a rumour of the retirement of Sir Henry Wood," we said. "Oh, nonsense," said Mr. Page. "When Sir Henry Wood retires a requiem will have to be sung. Great men don’t retire; they die in harness." "And how do you account for this revival of music-listening throughout England? Do the people seek the comfort and solace of the music?" "Not only the solace and comfort of the music. They seek its inspiriting influence, its power of renewal of the spirit. Good music is not only a balm, It’s an exhortation." In England Mr. Page has been for the last six years organist at the Notre Dame de France in London; in this church there was a beautiful CavallieCol organ, and this was completely wrecked in a bombing raid last year. This destruction was personally disastrous for Mr. Page, although he continued to direct the music in a temporary church constructed from the ruinswith a small harmonium in place of the great organ. During the first four years he was abroad, Mr. Page made tours, giving many recitals in England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, and Belgium. He had also arranged to tour through Germany with the violinist Bratza, with whom he gave 24 recitals in London, but the permit was refused at the last moment. "And," said Mr. Page, "when the Germans give an order one does not ask questions."