The Orchestra on the Coast

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 540, 28 October 1949, Page 6

The Orchestra on the Coast

oy SE the National Orchestra first crossed the Alps into Westland this month it was a ptoneering expedition. One could be certain about West Coast hospitality, but could one be sure that the Orchestra and its music would meet with the approval of West Coasters? To find out, "The Listener" sent a representative along too, and his report is printed on these pages. The Coasters, willing as ever to try anything once, tried the Orchestra and found it well worth while.

HE rain started about four miles from Arthur’s Pass, and the National Orchestra, making its first tour of the Coast, crossed into Westland without benefit of sunshine. The rain didn’t surprise the party’s South Islanders when they remembered the balmy Nor’ West air in Christchurch that morning. The sun had shone on them all alike as they walked into the railway station: violin, bassoon and contra bass, trumpet, timpani and harp. Those who were carrying their instruments put them very carefully in the luggage racks of the two reserved carriages. The train pulled out and they settled down quickly into their particular defences against travel boredom: talk, papers, magazines, knitting, cameras, sleep and food. But they were not sluggish. They leapt out of boredom into volatility at the sight of a new lamb, the Waimakariri Gorge, a white horse or a distant peak. They were artists: they had a_ well-developed sense of wonder. Music was never far away. Often it was associated with things beyond an outsider’s understanding. Crossing the Bealey Bridge, we looked down at the white and green water. A face lit up: "Remember?" and he sang "Ta-ta-te-tum-te-ta." "No," somebody else said, "Tum tum ta tum tum." | "Ah yes!" said a third, beaming,.and joined in. They sang for half a minute in the manner of instrument musicians#® accurately from the throat and head, without chest tones, then stopped sud-

denly, all together, and talked about something else. . At Otira it was raining steadily as the keener travellers stampeded for their dinner. Orchestra members late in

the queue muttered to each other about feeding methods in other countries, In their time they had covered ground. Nobody mentioned Lhasa or Samarkand, but the rest of the world was well ‘spoken of. RAIN CAME DOWN SOFTLY REYMOUTH -at 4.30 p.m. from the railway station was not a rousing sight. Rain come down softly with occasional heavy showers. It was the end of a wet fortnight, but the Coasters in the street were in the main overcoatless, or, if they wore them, did so carelessly, swinging open, adornments rather than protection from the weather. ° After dinner it was still raining. Who was for an evening out? A few went to a movie they had seen before, most settled in their hotels. Greymouth would be there tomorrow, and who knew, it. might be fine. The group I happened to be with were diverse. So was the talk: freedom of speech, publicity methods, watersiders, the licence allowed the student. community, edible snails fattened on dock leaves, jambes de fraiggees boiled in white wine and served with a tablespoon of cream, the habits of bulls in Akaroa and the way rumours spread through a body of people. Outside it rained softly and steadily with occasional heavy showers. The

Coasters continued to paddle about their business overcoatless. We didn’t know how we stood with them yet. Sunday brought a Southerly change, which meant that it was colder and still raining, but likely to clear in a day or so. Sunday is a free day for the orchestra. Most of them practise for a few hours in the morning, if they can find a place to play. » In the dfternoon I went to Reefton with a violin and a flute on the invitation of a man who had business there. At times jt rained very hard indeed, but the trip was worthwhile. Our host made about £80, and on the way back we shared a vision of a bright and perfect rainbow, standing north of us against bush and the dark sky. The flute and the violin exclaimed in a*mixture of languages, flinging themselves round the car to get a better view. We stopped, and watched the western end of the bow lift and dissolve as the sun set. arms, was sure to be fine now. YOUNG COASTERS Two of the busier members of the party were the Concert Manager, G. C. F. Parker, who does everything, all the time, pleasantly and competently, and Bill Barsby, whom I met at the

theatre on Monday morning. When he finishes a concert, Bill puts away his bass fiddle in its case, heaves it on to a truck, stacks all the other large instruments with it, and the music stands and the platforms and the conductor’s podium and many other pieces of gear, making a very large truck load and a couple of hours’ work if things go well. When he is not playing or ‘rehearsing or practising or loading or unloading or travelling, his time, as he puts it, is all his own. He gave me a quick grin and went on unloading cases*shaped like gigantic metronome boxes, which, I learnt later, held double basses. "Don’t drop ’em," he said, cook and rosy, moving rapidly in several directions at once. "Put those down there. Any of those marked ‘A’ over here. Use the trolley for that, son. Better move that flat. Leave her to me, she’s tricky." The orchestra members arrived in small groups, exchanged gossip about their hotels, and started to clean and tune their instruments for rehearsal. I went down into the body of the theatre and met the Coast peering through a door, in the persons of Errol, Dian and (continued on page 8)

The Orchestra on the Coast °

(continued from page 6) Malcolm, aged about seven, nine and four, who wanted to know about this unusual activity. "What is it, mister? Is there going to be a show?" "Yes, a musical show. Lots of people playing on instruments. Violins and trumpets and trombones and drums." "Any cowboys?" Malcolm asked. "No cowboys and nobody singing. Just people playing." "No Mickey Mouse?" "Afraid not. Mickey Mouse is only on the pictures." The other two knew that and laughed at Malcolm who was ashamed and baffled. Action was obviously needed if these three Coasters were to be won for music. A viola appeared at the stage : door. ; "Excuse me," I said. "We don’t quite know what to expect-could you help us please?" She played pizzicato for them, and let them pluck a little and handle the bow. They gasped with pleasure and danced and darted about.the instrument, stroking the warmly coloured wood. The viola player looked happy too. It seemed a good start. Before rehearsals I learnt; during rehearsals and concerts I looked and listened and learnt. I learnt about timpani, the deep, hide-covered copper basins, which I had vaguely identified before as "something like a tom tom." I learnt that they must be tuned constantly, and that sometimes they have to be tuned to one key while the orchestra is playing in another. During the delicate tuning operations the timpanist must at the same time keep counting the bars played so that he will know when to come in again for his next passage. ) I learnt that a piccolo can go out of tune in a matter of seconds through slight changes in air temperature, leaving the player frustrated and the music critic sharpening the cutting edge of his pencil. And I learnt that if. a violin told me double bass playing was superior only to coffin making, I should take his ‘word no more or less than the word of a double bass if he told me violinists were immoral, unChristian and a menace to society. MUSIC 1S MOVEMENT T concerts music comes from behind the footlights. If it’s good, it’s alive, but formal. At rehearsals, viewed, from the electricians’ platform, music is movement and people: movement in concentric half circles, strings, wood-wind, brass and percussion, spreading out from the conductor like ripples on a pond. The movement is the music and the people: violin and viola bows moving in and out, up and down, separate flashes of lightning. Cello and bass bows moving across and across caressingly, musicians moving with their instruments. Flautists waiting for their cue, eyes on the score, moving mouth and jaw muscles, getting the feel right for blowing. The first flute moving before he comes in, coming in on movement, blowing with all of him, fingers, elbows, shouldefs, eyebrows and torso. . Little things: the agile fingers of the strings’ left hands, alive on their own,

all the violins turning a page together, a violinist sneezing quietly, bending forward and back exactly on the beat, the first trumpet waiting to come in, partly extinguished under a red eye shade, lower profile immobile, jaw forward, making an embouchure, the shock. when the loud speaker gear blasted unexpectedly in the middle of a soft passage, making us all jump and glare, struck on a sensitive spot. BOXING WAS POSTPONED F the sounds I’m not qualified to write. I can only say they moved me deeply, and I think they moved Coast people, although that was more difficult to sense. .At Greymouth, where they played first, the Orchestra’s pre-concert diffidence was dispersed by the hospitable action of the Greymouth Boxing Association, who announced publicly that they were postponing a Monday night meeting because of the visit of the Orchestra. But we felt there might be something sinister in the story brought back from one of the Greymouth pubs. Two Orchestra members were having a quiet drink, -talking of the night’s programme and comparing a symphony in D Minor with one, say, in G Minor. "You’re on the Coast now," said a voice behind them, "Play the one in Coal Miner." At the evening concerts I saw only two people who were at all like what strangers think of as Coast types. One was an old man with a bugle nose and white hair who kept his hat on until The King. He made no move during the concert except to clap in a measured fashion, and his:face wore exactly the same expression when he went out as it had when he came in. For all I know he may possess a vast knowledge of music, 3 The other might have been a mechanic or an engine driver on a timber mill. He came in on the hour, giving way for nobody: fat, sallow and hostile, he pounded belligerently down the aisle, hat on his head, open lumber jacket swinging. Like most of the con-cert-goers he looked happier and a bit surprised when he left. I suppose they had screwed themselves up for an ordeal. Classical music was something you turned off hurriedly when it was announced on the radio. It was a language you didn’t speak, full of foreign words like opus and allegro vivace. Well, it didn’t come to your doorstep very often, better grit your teeth and face the unfamiliar. But when you heard it, it wasn’t unfamiliar, it was simply something that is in all of us if we give it a chance to come out. The National Orchestra, who have a lot in them, coax it out of us too, whether we are West Coasters or North Aucklanders, or M.P.’s with an election on our minds, and best of all, they coax it out of the children, whose faces are worth watching as they come out of school concerts. Something must be added, of course, to instructive familiarity with music. On the Coast, Adult Education and the Arts Couficil are doing that job. They are modest and say they have only just started. "But," an official told us. thing is stirring. We can feel that." If the National Orchestra stimulated that stirring, I think the members will be well content. -* -- a»

G. leF.

Y.