ORCHESTRA UNDER GUEST CONDUCTOR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 407, 11 April 1947, Page 10

ORCHESTRA UNDER GUEST CONDUCTOR

Thoughts on Third Concert

land there are signs of a musical awakening. Music at last promises to become one of our country’s means ‘of self-ex-pression, and that is good. It is the nature of music to make itself heard. Therein lie both its value and its dangers. What is heard publicly must always be fit to be heard. Enthusiasm in the hundreds of newly-formed choirs Fh ar in New Zea-

and _ instrumental . groups may create a desire to be heard publicly. But restraint is necessary. Enthusiastic desire to be heard needs to be curbed until a right standard is reached, worthy of its great subject, for music is no trivial- ‘ ity; it is a great art. And’ the many groups of enthusiasts referred to can | only know whether | they are fit to make © music in public by coming into contact with standards against which they can measure themselves. A _ standard measure can bring not only admiration of that standard, but it can bring the necessary humility | to those not up to

standard-not a foolish humility that thwarts all effort, but a reasonable humility that causes one to make effort to attain the best possible. And the possession of a National Orchestra, trained as it is being trained by Andersen Tyrer, and ever advancing in proficiency, provides us with an adequate standard in orchestral playing that we have not permanently possessed before. And since this orchestra is a\standard (and one is not claiming for it perfection, for its promoters, its trainer, the players themselves and any thinking person know that it is only in the stage of vigorous, healthy youth, and that it has not yet achieved maturity), ‘since this orchestra is a standard it has features worth considering. Here are: two. The orchestra is formed of people who to a greater or lesser extent know something of their subject, music. Some know much, and in addition are experienced; others know less, but are learning, and are acquiring experience. It is therefore formed on a basis of knowledge of the subject, and its performances reflect that this is so. Would that this could be said of every public performance that one hears! Would that it could be said, let us say, of some of our School Festivals, where at times one feels that the festival resembles, not a real tree bearing rich fruit, but ‘only a Christmas tree with its hollow and imitation fruits merely tied on, the tree itself even having no roots! A musical festival must be a true fruition and no pretence. The desire for

a festival is a good thing; but it is better temporarily to remain publicly inarticulate and wisely humble until the requisite basis of knowledge has been acquired. Then and not before is a festival a right example of self-expression; and, as said earlier, that music should become one of New Zealand’s means of self-expression is good. For the thing to be done properly requires patience and good planning. But it is worth it. In the orchestra, not only is ther this basis of knowledge; there is

much study going on, hard work, individual practice, training, regular drill; drill for accuracy, drill for precision, drill for mood; incessant drill towards that unattainable goal, perfection. All music-making requires this if it is to have value. So it is good to have a National Orchestra, not only for what it gives us, but also for the benefit of the example it can set to a whole country. x * x N Saturday evening, March 29, to a full house in the Wellington Town Hall, and undoubtedly to thousands of radio listeners as well, the National

Orchestra under its first guest conductor, Dr, Edgar Bainton,. gave a ‘progranime containing another "first" feature, the concert performance of concertos with an overseas artist, in this case the pianist Madame Lili Kraus. The programme opened with the "Oberon" overture by the composer Weber, famous for his orchestral colouring; and as one heard the various tonal qualities entering one by one-horn, oboe, clarinet-one realised that here, at last, in New Zealand were those orchestral colourings, acceptable and right, which hitherto one had known only in orchestras abroad. And sincé there is truth in the saying that an orchestra will always play as badly as it is allowed to play, it is obvious that in rehearsal time much must have been demanded of this body of players. They should be proud of their achievement and thankful that they were worked hard, for we ere hearing orchestral tone at last, and receiving pleasure instead of, to some ears, something akin to pain. Heard even more lusciously in the Delius poem "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" these tonal qualities still held the centre of attention; for in judging a new orchestra it seems inevitable that the tone it produces should be the first consideration. Small blemishes there were, occasionally, but these scarcely seemed to matter, for one knew that it will not be long before these players can produce that still more hushed, breathless, ecstatic beauty which is the true essence of so much of the music of Delius. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) N the two concertos, the Mozart D Minor (K.466) and the Beethoven Fourth, the G Major (Op. 58) the orchestra showed itself even more successful, for the production of the clean, precise sounds of classical music suited them. In fact when one heard them in the post-classical Wagner "Siegfried Idyll," good as this was, it revealed that they are not fully ready for the more elusive and consequently more dangerous forms of rubato control which the conductor’s imagination would have sought had they possessed still greater suppleness in timé-deviation, Opinions are bound to differ as to which item provided the peak of the concert, for the personal element enters here; but to one, at least, this peak was reached in the Beethoven Concerto. Here was complete unity; soloist, and con-ductor-and therefore orchestra alsothought as one. The Concerto was warmly felt and poetically conceived by all concerned. And to say, as is true, that the soloist gave a finely-reasoned interpretation expressed in beautifully-shaped phrases is not intended to imply that this was lacking in the orchestra. It certainly was not lacking. What better equality of interest could anywhere be found than that heard in the slow movement (Andante con moto) where two conflicting moods gradually became one, the unchanging tenderness in the soloist’s part little by little subduing the sternness of the orchestra’s persistent subject. This exquisite movement more than once reminded one of the line of thought that was later followed up by Cesar Franck.

OT having seen Madame Kraus before, and knowing of her reputation as a Mozart player, I was surprised to find myself viewing her Beethoven Concerto as preferable to her Mozart. In the Mozart there was not the same unity, for the soloist’s tone seemed less truly Mozartian than did that of the orchestra. It was an enjoyable and good performance certainly, but somehow it was less satisfying. Madame Kraus plays with her mind vividly at work, attending ‘to all details of subject interest, and bringing essential structure clearly to the minds of her listeners. It is musicianly work and it pleases greatly. That is why she has no need to resort to artificial aids such as, for example, her manner of exit. The work itself is good. An Englishman prefers that it be left to speak for itself. Anything over and above that harms the good impression thet the work itself has made. To speak of Dr. Bainton’s work is hardly necessary, for any references already made to the orchestral interpreta tions apply to him. He was equally able in every type of music on the pro-gramme-classical, romantic, and semimodern; and he was as effective in using the orchestra as an accompanying body as he was in using them as an instrument to play upon alone. His work was fully acclaimed by the audience many times during the evening; and after the boisterously joyous overture to Smetana’s "The Bartered Bride" as the final item of the programme, the audience’s appreciation of his work’ and that of the orchestra was demonstrated, one feels sure, to his and their complete satisfaction.