ONE WEEK TO GO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 6

ONE WEEK TO GO

pear on these pages were taken at the Wellington Town Hall as the National Orchestra entered its final week of strenuous rehearsals. Regular rehearsal time was accounting for 25 hours a week, but enthusiasm was running high and many of the members were giving up most of their own time to private practice, both singly.and in groups. If pa.nstaking preparation and hard work can assure success, March 6 will be a date to be remembered. When they file on to the stage at the Town Hall that evening, the players will make their appearance in the traditional order: first the brass and woodwind sections, then the strings, followed by the orchestra leader, and finally the conductor. The part the audience is expected to play is to be seated before 8.0 p.m., when the doors will be closed. No one will be admitted to the hall during an item. (continued on next page) | photographs which ap-

(continued trom previous page) The photographs here show the players as they will appear at the performance. Full evenings dress will be the order, with the women members in black long-sleeved frocks, Everyth ng possible h@s been done to stage the concert well. There will be special floodlighting over the orchestra, and special ‘seats have been installed to allow players freedom of movement without any of the discordant creaks’ that conventional seating might be liable to give out. But there will be no decuorat.on of the stage it-~ self, since even a carpet or stage-cloth would affect the acoustics. Keen interest has been taken in the progress of the orchestra by His Excellency Sir Bernard Freyberg. Tne Governor-General will be unable to attend the inaugural concert, but he hoped to be able to hear the programme one evening during the final week of rehearsal. The entire concert w-.ll be broadcast by 2YA, beginning at 8.0 and concluding at approximately 10.0 p.m. Of the several major works which have been chosen, the essential note is one of brightness and good humour. The opening item is Dvorak’s "Carnival" Overture, and this will be followed by Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73; one of the most popular of all Brahms’s purely orchestral works; and one which was a favourite with the composer himself. Of the other items in the inaugural programme, Georges Enesco’s Rumanian Rhapsody should find favour through its vivacious orchestration; English music will be represented by Butterworth’s "Shropshire Lad," and for Wagnerites there will be the "Prelude and LoveDeath" from Tristan und Isolde. The programme will conclude, as it began, on a, note of gaiety, with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks based on the old German legend of the practical joker whu became a folk hero. €% Ze