HEAVY WEEK FOR ORCHESTRA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 623, 8 June 1951, Page 7

HEAVY WEEK FOR ORCHESTRA

Auckland Music Festival Concert Series

ROM Monday to Saturday next week the National Orchestra, under its guest conductor, Sir Bernard Heinze, will give four evening concerts, two schools’ concerts and a lunch-hour concert in the Auckland district. With some members also assisting in other Auckland Music Festival programmes, it will be an exceptionally heavy week for the orchestra. The series will open on Monday, June 11, with a public concert, broadcast by 1YC from the Auckland Town Hall. At this concert the Orchestra will give the first performance here of The Fire Bird, by Stravinsky. The symphony on this programme is by Brahms-No. 4 in E Minor. The other works will be Suzanne’s Secret, by Wolf-Ferrari, and Mozart’s popular Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Six composers are represented on the programme for the lunch-hour concert on Tuesday, June 12. Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor is the opening item. It is followed by Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. Then come Le. Dernier Sommeil de la Vierge, by Mas‘senet, Tchaikovski’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, and the dance and polka from the Age of Gold Ballet Suite, by Shostakovich. The concert ends with Tales from the Vienna Woods, by Johann Strauss. This concert will be broadcast by 1YD at approximately 12.15 p.m. Excerpts from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro will be featured at the evening concert, broadcast by 1YC, on Wednesday, June 13. Soloists in this performance will be Phyllis Mander (soprano), Sybil Phillipps (soprano), and Stewart Harvey (baritone). Symphony No. 2 in

D Major, by Sibelius, is the major orchestral work on the programme, which also includes Suite for Strings (Purcell-Barbirolli). Two concerts for schools-one in the morning and the other in the: afternoon -will be given on Thursday, June 14. At each of these the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G Minor will be played, with Winifred Cooke as soloist; and God Defend New. Zealand and Quilter’s Non Nobis Dominie, will be sung. The programme, which is the same for each concert, will open with Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, and include A Walk Through the Orchestra, Danse Macabre, by Saint-Saens, and the Blue Danube Waltz of Johann Strauss. The second concert will be broadcast by 1YA at 2.30 p.m.

Richard Farrell will make the first appearance of his New Zealand. tour at the evening concert on Friday, June 15. He will play the Brahms Piano Concerto in-D Minor. The programme will open with the Russlan and Ludmilla Overture by Glinka, and it is hoped that it will include Symphony No. 5, by Shostakovich. This concert will be broadcast by 1YC. The orchestra will make its first visit to Cambridge on Saturday, June 16. There it will play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major as the main work. Handel (Royal Fireworks Suite), Mozart (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik), Delius (Two Aquarelles for Strings), and Tchaikovski (Romeo and Juliet Overture) are the other composers represented on the programme. This concert will not be broadcast.