"GHOSTS OF MUSIC"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 515, 6 May 1949, Page 13

"GHOSTS OF MUSIC"

SERIES of self-contained programmes dealing with the lives of famous composers under the title Ghosts of Music, is now being heard from the ZB stations at 6.0 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. Each episode of Ghosts of Music contains some of the best-known music of a selected composer, played by the New Budapest Trio, a recently-formed Australian

chamber-music group. Three of the players are members of the Musica Viva Society which visited New Zealand last year, and the high standard of their playing is well-known to local listeners. The Trio consists of Robert Pikler (violin), Maureen Jones (piano), and Theo Salzman alternating with Lois Simpson as ‘cellist. The idea behind these programmes is to associate the story of each composer and his music with the city where he was born. Thus the story of Johann Strauss becomes also the story of Vienna, and brief highlights from the composer’s life are linked together with several of his more popular compositions played by the Trio. There are 52 programmes in.the series, each dealing with .a different composer, and all the great names of music are there, as well as many of the "popular" ones. Robert Pikler is an old pupil of Szymon Goldberg and first visited New Zealand with Lili Kraus in 1947, Theo Salzman is ‘a former soloist with the Vienna and Palestine Symphony Orchestras, and Maureen Jones is a ‘young Australian pianist who came _ into prominence as winner of an ABC Concerto Competition a few years ago. She has since played concertos with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens in addition to her chamber Ek) SRNR REE ahah eT angaren etn tang"