PUPIL OF SCHNABEL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 556, 17 February 1950, Page 16

PUPIL OF SCHNABEL

S a pianist, Dorothy Davies is so well known to listeners, particularly in Wellington, that perhaps few of them pause to consider just how good she is. She was born and bred in New Zealand, the only girl in a family of eight. They were all musical-each of her five brothers played one instrument or an-other-so that music was part of the family life. When she left school she studied first at the Sydney Conservatorium, then at the Royal College of Music,

in London, but since she had to earn her living too during her years overseas, Dorothy Davies did all sorts of other things as well-played ballet music for -Marie Rambert, worked as a concert -accompanist, and played jazz for a physical culture club. It was pretty hard work but Dorothy Davies makes no bones about hard work, She says emphatically that it’s the secret of progress. It was in Londo that she met the Schnabels-a meeting that _led to her becoming accompanist to rs. Schnabel (Therese Behr), a singer of lieder. In their home in Italy, at .Tremezzo on Lake Como Dorothy Davies mixed with students and artists from all over the wortd, who ‘had come to’study, like herself, under the gifted couple. Of Schnabel himself Dorothy Davies thinks ‘that while it is perhaps an overestimate to describe him as "the greatest living exponent of Beethoven’s music," he has probably the profoundest understanding of the final period of the composer’s work. Schnabel, like Busoni, is a musical scholar and his phrasing is historically founded on research and tradition. :

It is more than twenty years now since Dorothy Davies first broadcast to New Zealand listeners. Then, as she recalls, no artist would have dared to give the public "high-brow stuff’? more than once a week, but today, artists are given a free hand. She feels this is mainly becatise the public is more accustomed to good music. But on matters of public taste and judgment she is a cautious commentator. "People are willing to listen to more music," she says, "but I think the public’s

understanding of musical structure is not gocd enough yet to enable them to appreciate what the artist is doing." Listeners in New Zea‘land as a whole, she thought, were inclined to discount native talent"There’s a lot of good stuff in this country. It’s only lack of confidence in our own that leads listeners to underrate the ability of ,many gifted artists who are doing good work here." The public she thinks is too apt to reserve its enthusiasm for _ visiting performers when different backgrounds and colourful personalities provide a setting for emotional . listening. "The public," as she puts it, "must rather: learn to listen to what the artist is saying, and how he says it, and schools still need to develop. the analytical approach to music." Towards the end of last year Dorothy Davies was heard with Bessie Pollard in ‘a studio re-

cital of Balinese ceremonial dances, transcribed for two pianos by a young American composer Colin McPhee who spent five years in Bali studying its native music. The following week the two artists broadcast another studio re-cital-compositions by Arnold Bax for two pianos, Red Autumn and The Poisoned Fountain. These recitals were the first broadcasts in New Zealand. of the Balinese music and the Bax works. Soon Dorothy Davies will be heard againwhen she and the English ‘cellist "Peers Coetmore ‘broadcast a series’ of programmes featuring the Beethoven ‘cello sonatas. . -_-_-S--