Beethoven to Milne

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 8

Beethoven to Milne

EW visiting radio artists give us such consistently interesting programmes as the Australian baritone Clement Q. Williams. In the first recital which I heard he introduced what were described as "Liedef-Old and New." Beethoven's "Adelaide" began this group, and in contrast were some songs by Kilpinen, Strauss, and Wolff. Another fine recital consisted of a Russian group and a Scandinavian group, the latter containing songs by Palmgren, Berger, Sibelius, Sinding, and . Sjogren, composers who seem to be almost completely ignored in the repertoires of our own singers. Nothing could be further removed from this type of programme than Mr. Williams’s -presentation, on another occasion, of the Fraser-Simson settings of songs from When We Were Very Young. I fancy that the settings by this composer, like the verses of Milne, are a little too sophisticated to appeal to the very young listeners for whom they were intended, and that they are better understood by the adult child. I don’t imagine, somehow, that the "hums" invented by that little-known composer, Pooh Bear, were as melodically difficult for children to sing as these settings by FraserSimson. They would, I am sure, have more of the genuine nursery-rhyme about them. A. A. Milne himself «onfessed that he couldn’t remember any of the tunes to which his words were set -whereas nobody cold fail to remember the tune of a nursery-rhyme, even after one hearing.