Poetry and the Piano

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 405, 28 March 1947, Page 17

Poetry and the Piano

RTHUR HIRST, who gives A piano lecture recitals, is in New Zealand again after an absence of 18 years. He is a New Zealander. Forty years ago he was an employee of the New Zealand Railways Department, then he became

a bank officer. But, he told us in an interview, music called him, and he decided to sink all his capital in its study in England and Europe. Mr. Hirst will give a series of lectures, in New Zealand schools of more than 200 pupils, on the appreciation of great music and of English poetry, illustrating his talks with piano representations of folk music and the works of classical composers. When he mentioned that he had been a member of a panel of lecturers on the

arts and sciences (taking the music section), and that he had lectured in more than 100 British towns, we asked him how the W.E.A. and the British Adult Schools Union had fared during the recent war. "Like other educational facilities they were severely handicapped," he said. "But they are recovering rapidly; their educational value is extremely high and so is their popularity." Discussing his travels, he said that after spending some time at Frankfurt-on-Maine, he joined the Mathilde Verne School in London, where he met the British pianist Solomon, who was working with Madame Verne. Later he went to Berlin to study with Dohnanyi, and then he became assistant to Professor Kwast, who taught Percy Grainger. "It was very happy and comfortable there till the first world war came. I then returned to England and joined the Dover Patrol. When I was invalided out, I settled down in London to do more lecturing." Mr. Hirst told us that he had been a personal friend of Rachmaninoff, with whom he spent many summers in Switzerland, so that he had been able to contribute a section to the composer’s biography. And when he returns to England in July, via New York, he hopes to meet Madame Rachmaninoff and another friend, Percy Grainger. On the day he arrived in New Zealand he heard the debut of the New Zealand National Symphony Orchestra, which he described as a "grand moment in the Dominion’s musical history. I was amazed at its excellence,’ he said. "As it settles down and finds it feet, it will become a fine instrument." Mr. Hirst will be heard shortly jn a recorded talk.