Words and Music

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 431, 26 September 1947, Page 15

Words and Music

"| NTERESTING" is often used by the commentator, when all else fails, in a desperate effort to find the right word for something that is not only good but worthwhile; it sis time this overtired word was dropped in favour of something more definite. I barely prevented myself from using it in a comment on a recital from 4YA by the soprano Margaret Laing; a fine recital of modern British songs by Besley, Shaw, and Bantock. The two songs by Granville Bantock, "The Peach Flower" and "Yung Yang," which demand the creation of a mature and yet delicate atmosphere, were excellently done. This was one of the few occasions on which, listening to these songs, I have heard all the words. I am not in agreement with the obstinately musical school of thought which declares that the best vocal music would lose. nothing by,being sung in an unknown language, and that it is the purely musical values which count. It is true that opera is best sung in its language of origin, even if this means that half the audience doesn’t understand it, since most English translations are so abominable as to be a constant source of irritation. But in the case of modern British song-writers, most of them have chosen to set the best poems of the English school, words and music are indissolubly mated, and failure to hear the words means losing a clue to the music’s theme and emotional atmosphere.