BATTLE FOR MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 454, 5 March 1948, Page 15

BATTLE FOR MUSIC

(British National) — [N spite of a number of technical defects, some trivial and some serious, Battle for Music is a film I was glad to see and hear. It is an attempt, on the whole praiseworthy, to present in dramatic form the story of the London Philharmonic Orchestra during the war years. At the olitset of the war the orchestra was in danger of dissolution through the liquidation of the proprietory company. To prevent this catastrophe the members themselves formed a new company and their struggle towards solvency is the story of the film. It was a long and often desperate struggle-more of a campaign, in fact, than a battle. The first adventure was a tour of the provinces which roused a good deal of enthusiasm but barely covered travelling expenses. A tour of France which would have done much to establish the new company on a sound financial basis was brought to naught by the fall of France itself. Almost the last straw was the loss of many instruments in the bombing of Queen’s Hall during the London blitz. More than counterbalancing these disasters, however, was the enthusiasm and determination of the players themselves, the willing help they received from. leading conductors, and the very practical assistance they got from J. B. Priestley and Jack Hylton. From the initial adversities to the final success the story is one well worth telling. But I wish it had been better told. The direction is uninspired and the photography often monotonous. In the early sequences the sound is marred by a persistent echo, and the dialogue is

at times woefully artificial. And those members of the orchestra who have parts.to play in the story are so painfully conscious of the camera and the microphone that they recite their lines instead of speaking them. But (and you have this not simply as my own untutored opinion, for I took along my friend Mus. Bac. as technical adviser) the music is superb, and even the occasional weakness of the recording cannot spoil it. I should mention that in the final sequence of the film-re-corded in the orchestra’s new home, the Orpheum Theatre-the sound is first class. Nor is the music presented in the tantalising fragments to which we have become accustomed. There are lengthy excerpts from Tchaikovski’s Romeo and Juliet and Mbozart’s 40th Symphony. Eileen Joyce is heard in the finale of the Grieg Concerto, with Warwick Braithwaite conducting, and Sir Adrian Boult conducts Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture. Sir Malcolm Sargent and the orchestra are heard in part of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphonywhile the adjoining building burns. during an air-raid. In another sequence Benno Moiseiwitsch plays a movement from -Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, the conductor this time being Constant Lambert. I found it particularly interesting to compare and contrast the styles-of the four conductors-and not unamusing either, at times. Battle for Music could be roundly criticised, and I have no doubt that it will be in some quarters, but I would not like to be guilty of dissuading anyone from seeing it. Its virtues win through over its faults.