OWEN JENSEN STARTS A DIARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 669, 2 May 1952, Page 7

OWEN JENSEN STARTS A DIARY

HEN Owen Jensen decided recently to leave Auckland and settle in the capital he said he believed a musician needed new stimulus every so often if he was to keep his work fresh and continue giving his best. From a talk which The Listener had with Mr. Jensen in Wellington the other day it got the impression that he won’t be the only one to get stimulus from the change. He had already arranged to broadcast a series of six illustfated talks on music of the unusual, provocative kind with which many listeners will already be familiar, and he was planning a series of evenings with adult education classes: which will be part talk, part discussion and part practical work. Mr. Jensen’s new talks, which are to be heard from 2YA at 4.0 p.m. on Sundays under the title A Listening Diary (the first of them this Sunday, May 4), will each approach a composer from some unsual angle. They will all be illustrated at the piano and will be followed as soon as possible by a broadcast from 2YC of the major work discussed. The first programme is "The Man Who Liked Bach" and Bach’s Suite in B Minor for flute and strings will be heard from 2YC at 7.0 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7. "Many listeners, whether they know Bach or not, think of him in terms of the marvellous technical achievements in his writing,’ Mr. Jensen explained. "They don’t think of the technique of his style of writing as the servant of his feelings. In fact the emotional or romantic element runs through much of his work, and that’s the view I shall state in my talk." In general terms, Mr. Jensen said, his aim throughout the series would be to

introduce people to unfamiliar music and to bring out new pleasures in familiar music. Whatever a composer might have intended in writing a piece of ‘music, difefent people heard and enjoyed different things in it. Some of these different viewpoints, and not necessgrily those of people ea@erned professionally with music, would be brought into the talks. "The Amazing Scarlatti," the second programme in A Listening Diary, will be broadcast from 2YA at 4.0 p.m. on: Sunday, May 11, followed by Scarlatti sonatas from 2YC at 5.48 p.m. the same day. Hugo Wolf’s songs, Debussy and the Impressionists, and "the strange case of Erik Satie" will be discussed in other _programmes already planned. Mr. Jensen is calling the adult _ education course he will conduct: in Wellington this winter The Making of a Musician, and he will

make it clear that he considers that a musician may be a performer, a composer or a_ listener. ("Yes, listening is a very highly specialised form of musicianship.")- Practical work will include singing and possibly recorder music. As Mr. Jensen had gone on record as saying that Wellington has "tremendous musical possibilities," The Listener asked him if he could say a little more about this without, of course, making any comparisons that would cause offence north of the 38th Parallel. "Wellington is already a lively musical centre, rapidly developing further,"

said Mr. Jensen. "So many musicians have come here in the last few years -not only those in the’ National Orchestra, but people outside it as well. Then the climate-I know this point is generally treated facetiously, but I believe the climate helps to stimulate interest in music. It’s invigorating; and for most of the year people are not diverted by beaches and outdoor life generally.’ People, too, can also live as a community better in Wellingtons than in Auckland, Mr. Jensen thinks. Auckland is so spread out that people find it quite an effort to see one another.