NEW ORCHESTRAL SEASON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 453, 27 February 1948, Page 9

NEW ORCHESTRAL SEASON

National Orchestra of the NZBS ended its highly successful opening’ season, its members have been rehearsing in groups in their home centres. On January 26 they were assembled again in Wellington to begin full rehearsals for this year’s series of concerts. We understand that these rehearsals-which have" occupied 25 hours a week-have been going so well that the players are getting through much more work than they did last year. ‘ Because the Orchestra received such an enthusiastic reception in Auckland in 1947, the new season will open on Tuesday, March 2, in the Auckland Town Hall, when Isobel Baillie will be the guest artist. Three concerts will be given in Auckland during the first week, and a further series will be played there later in the year. As an innovation this season popular lunch-hour concerts will be given, the first in Auckland’s Town Hall at 12.15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 3, and another on the following Wednesday~ in Wellington. These concerts will be for about an hour, and will consist of a number of the shorter popular classical works. Included in the Auckland concert will be the Barber of Seville Overture, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2; and Eric Coates’s London Every Day Suite, while the Wellington concert will contain such pieces as Enesco’s Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1, Grainger’s Londonderry Air, and the first movement of August 20, when the

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor. The two principal Auckland concerts (on March 2 and 4) will include several New Zealand first performances, including a short Soliloquy by the conductor, Andersen Tyrer. This work, which Mr, Tyrer composed after his father’s death, was published in England in 1937, but has not yet been played here. Tchaikowski’s Serenade for String Orchestra, which has been scored for full orchestra by Mr. Tyrer, will also be played. The main works in these concerts will be Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 ("Haffner"), and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, a majestic and difficult work which has always been distinguished by its Olympian grandeur. Modern English music will be represented by John Ireland’s The Forgotten Rite and Arnold Bax’s Overture to a Picaresque Comedy. | Isobel Baillie will sing arias by Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart at these concerts. Since her arrival in New Zealand a week ago she has been rehearsing in Wellington with the National Orchestra and with her official accompanist for the New Zealand tour, Wainwright Morgan. At the three Wellington concerts (on March 10, 11, and 13) Borodin’s Symphony No. 2 in B Minor and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major ("Pastoral") will be played. Also to be included are Hemming-Collins’s Threnody for a Soldier Killed in Action and Arnold Bax’s Overture to Adventure. Isobel Baillie will again be the guest artist.