MOVEMENT BY NIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 24

MOVEMENT BY NIGHT

URING the next few weeks travellers along some of the North Island highways may see a_ six-ton motor vehicle making its way by night from one town or city to another, This will be the music-truck of the National Orchestra of the NZBS; yet there won't be so much as a peep out of it, except perhaps from the electric horn, for it will carry a cargo of orchestral impediments, but no players. Few performers mind carrying a violin, ’cello, flute, piccolo or trumpet case under the arm; in fact, quite a few musicians are obviously proud of their trademarks on short walks to rehearsal or to the theatre. But when it comes to taking a double-bass, the larger of the brass: instruments, or possibly’ the harp on a long trip, pride in personal luggage is offset by inconvenience. Immediately a night’s performance is over, the truck is loaded.up with music, music-stands, platforms, rostrum, the larger and more unwieldy of the instruments, and supplementary and spare lighting equipment, and driven through the night to the next town on the orchestral itinerary, on a sort of theatre-to-theatre plan. This saves multiple handling and ensures special care being taken of instruments whose value can run into a substantial sum. In the orchestra’s stock-list are musicmaking appliances and adjuncts ranging from the big drums of the percus-

ese ae nn ener sion department to fragile violin-mutes. In the string section alone there are instruments of considerable worth, including a Gagliano, a Guadagnini, a Rugerius, and a G.B. Stradivari (violins) and a Gagliano ’cello. These, of course, will not jog along in the truck, but stick closely to their owners’ sides. The orchestra’s itinerary for the first part of the 1949 season (already opened at New Plymouth) includes Hawera, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Hastings, Napier, Gisborne, Hamilton and Auckland, and the players will return to Wellington late next month to prepare for the South Island season. This year a much greater mileage than usual is being covered-by bus, train, service-car and railcar-for, to be fully appreciated, symphony players should be seen as well as heard.