BOYD NEEL AND HIS ORCHESTRA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 402, 7 March 1947, Page 20

BOYD NEEL AND HIS ORCHESTRA

N.Z. Tour Organised by British Council EARLY two years ago the British Council sent Sir Angus Gillan, Director of its Empire Division, to tour New Zealand and see whether there was any way in which we could make use of tke assistance the Council offers to overseas countries (including the Dominions) which have a desiré for cultural relations with Britain. At that time, Sir Angus Gillan held out hopes of being able to send us such things as the Old Vic theatrical company, the Sedler’s Wells Ballet, and perhaps a British orchestra. And a few weeks ago it was announced that the Boyd Neel Orchestra (already very well known to New Zealand radio listeners by its recordings) would come here in April. Minor services from the British Council (such as the supply of review books to newspapers) have been in operation for some time; and through the recordings of British music which it has sponsored, the Council has already enriched our musical experience; but the visit of the Boyd Neel Orchestra will be the, first large-scale operation in this country by the British Council. Poyd Neel is 42, and was a doctor of medicine before he became a professional musician. He was born in Kent, and took his medical degree at Cambridge. As a student, he organised undergraduate musical activities, and admits that he only just got through his exams. Then he worked for three years at St. George’s Hospital, and for five years as a G.P. in the slums of London. But in

1933. he realised that music, rather than medicine, was his life, and he founded his Orchestra, a body of 18 young professionals from the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. He chose boldly-young flayers whose enthusiasm and vitality might sustain nis venture. They rehearsed every Sunday morning for six months, ani then gave their first concert in the Aeolian Hall. BBC representatives recommended engagements for them at once, and recording contracts were offered immediately. Over 100 Recordings Neel then gave up his medical career, and has never regretted it. Small orchestras then were few, and he knew there was a vast amount of first-rate music for s‘rings that was barely known tu the public. He believed he could iuucrease the demand for such music, and nas succeeded in doing so. Recordings began in the first year, and over a 10" works have now been done-including a good deal of modern music for strings, and all. of Handel’s Concerti Grossi for strings. The orcitestra also gave the first performance-a private one-ever given in the Glyndebourne Festival Theatre. In 1937 he was invited to take his orchestra to gi-e a concert of English music at the Salzburg Festival, and thus it became the first foreign orchestra to play at the Festival. It was also the youngest band of players that had ever been heard there. The conductor himself wes only 32 at the time. Wartime Activity When the war came, *: looked at first as if six years’ hard work might dis--solve in‘o nothing. The players were all | in age groups that were wanted for the forces, and they quickly went-including the leader, Frederick Grinke. Boyd Neel returned for a while to medicine. But as everyone krows nov Britain discovered after the first panic that music was as necessary in war as in peaceif not more so-and Neel started to reassemble the orchestra with some substitutes for those who }..d been called up. Before long he was overwhelmed with other work as well-he became Music Adviser for the London Region to ENSA; and worked with the London Regional Committee that was responsible for education in the Services. This meant administrative work, lectures, and conducting at CEMA concerts. With the orchestra, he went all over England and Scotland, and to the Orkney Islands and Scapa Flow. Alone, he visited the Navy, wherever it happened to be, to give lectures. In the Adriatic he was passed from one minesweeper to another. The orchestra still plays at some factory music clubs that have survived, and Boyd Neel says that the music which invariably bro._.t the greatest applause was Bela Bartok’s Divertimento. It brought, factory audiences to their feet, cheering. Benjamin Britten’s music also was popular with such audiences. Last year Boyd Neel recorded the six Brandenburg Concertos of Bach, and they were all to be played at 15 different centres during the winter. But that plan is probably one of the many things that have had to be suspended in Britain this winter. In London, the orchestra’s home is the Chelsea Town Hall, and it plays there each Monday night in the seasqn. Several recordings of the Boyd Neel Orchestra will be heard in next week’s programmes -for instance, 1YA, Wednesday, 2.30 p.m; 2YA, Tuesday, 9.45 S 3YA, Thursday, 7.57 p.m.; and 4YO, 10.17 p.m.