Encore!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 347, 15 February 1946, Page 9

Encore!

UNEDIN listeners have now had more than one opportunity of hearing Belshazzar’s Feast, the William Walton work which seems to leave behind it, at each performance, a trail of exalted admirers, argumentative critics, and frayed tempers. The W.E.A. in Dunedin made possible a public hearing some time ago, and its effect was such that, at the end of the work most of the

audience remained seated, in order to hear the whole thing right through again. I wish this could also be done on the radio. Having heard this work from,4YO, I should have liked the announcer to say, "Let’s cancel the rest of the programme and play it again, shall we?" But as this couldn’t be done, the next best thing is to watch for its reappearance in the programmes, since it is so obviously one of those things no ordinary listener can take in at first, second, or third hearing. Having read diatribes about the ear-crashing horror of this work of Walton’s, I was astounded, on first hearing it, that it was so much less discordant than I had beem led to believe. Indeed, it seems so orthodox, in comparison with much modern music, that, recalling the long line of great oratorios (St. Matthew; Messiah, Elijah, Gerontius), one finds an inevitable but steady development leading straight to Belshazzar. I think it was Delius who argued that the British would never produce a great composer until they took their music out of the Church. It is obvious that Walton has done this; he has taken oratorio out of its stifling. sanctified atmosphere and given it a much-needed blood transfusion. As far as the oratorio form and the future of British music are concerned, Delius can now sleep quietly and reassuredly in his grave however many other composers may turn over in theirs.