Comparisons

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 431, 26 September 1947, Page 14

Comparisons

OMPARISON by the listener of items in the same programme is inevitable, whether conscious or subconscious. The first item to which I tuned during a recent 4YA programme was Arlen’s "Alamein Concerto." This not only challenged comparison with mental evocations of all the gteat concerti from Mozart to Prokofieff, but also made its own worth, or lack of it, apparent by being placed in the same programme as Rawsthorne’s Variations for two violins. Also on the programme was Victor Young’s "For Whom the Bell Tolls," an extended work owing inspiration, as may be guessed, to Spanish musical influences, and of more value, musically, than most of the works of that prevalent school of composition which (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) owes its inspiration to current events, popular literature, or the necessity of . fitting &@ score to a film story. The two items by Arlen and Young would have passed without criticism entirely, hadthey not preceded the Theme and Variations by the modern British composer Rawsthorne. This piece of counterpoint, written simply for two violins and nothing else, is a vivid and stjmulating work,-and stands as an example to students of composition who may be attracted to the school of ConcetioComposers; if they will take time off from writing for piano and full orchestra, they may well realise in listening to these variations that effects as exquisite, as telling, and as lasting may be got with the minimum of effort and the slenderest means.

‘THESE notes ere not written by the staff of "The Listener" or ‘by any member of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. They are independent comments for which "The Listener" pays outside contributors.