Bach Explained

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 381, 11 October 1946, Page 10

Bach Explained

HERE was much that was excellent in the performance of Bach’s motet "Jesu, priceless treasure" from 1YA by the Auckland University Choral Society under Professor H. Hollinrake. Naturally it had the limitations one would expect in a performance of difficult, music by 60 students, lacking in tenors, but where these were not increased by the imposition of further obstacles the result was fine music, and moving. One obstacle that seemed unnecessary was the use of the full choir in a trio where clearer results could have been got with a few picked voices, which could have rehearsed more fully. Contrast between small and full choir, and a rest for the main body might have been gained. Strangely, a most difficult movement (the

fugue) was one of the most effectiveperhaps it had been rehearsed with special care. The chorale, which in its several versions is a kind of core to the motet, is a thing of great beauty, and this beauty was caught when the volume was restrained and lost when the volume was turned loose. Apart from the performance itself, there was another aspect of the broadcast about which I am critical-the interpolation between movements of technical descriptions of the music, as if for a composition class. This blasphemy seems to be permitted in music, by an unaccountable convention among the academic, whereas of the conduct of a religious service in a cathedral were interrupted by someone pointing out to the congregation some particularly fine cornice, ingenious arch, or beautiful capital; or if the reading of the lesson were interspersed with praises of the syntax, cries of "Note this use of metonymy, this novel synecdoche" etc., then we should not tolerate it for one minute, let alone 35.