New, True and Beautiful

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 714, 20 March 1953, Page 20

New, True and Beautiful

A Monthly Review by:

OWEN

JENSEN

NOTHER new name in LPs around these parts-Argo. The music is new and the plagieiae is good, or almost always anyhow: Debussy, Rawsthorne, Prokofieff, Berg, T. S. Eliot andwell, lét’s dip into the barrel. The first that comes out is the Hirsch Quartet playing the- Debussy Quartet. This is incisive workmanlike playing in which enthusiasm lifts the ear over a few rough spots. The reverse side carries Rawsthorne’s Theme and Variations for string quartet, music that is worth looking .into-by the chamber music connoisseur at least-and the well-known Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovski by ‘Arensky. This is a somewhat disappointing record, not for any disturbing lapses from musical grace or for indifferent recording, but because it just misses being’ very good,. leaving the impression that, one way and another, it might have been much better. From Debussy and company we can turn to Hindemith and Honegger, and some first-class viola playing by Ferenc Molinar in association with pianist Tanya Urey. These are viola and piano sonatas by the two just mentioned composers (Argo-ARL 1007). If you do not know these works, you may be surprised at how warm-and exciting, too-Hinde-mith can be, and how sweet Honegger. In the Hindemith sonata which commences with a rich viola phrase, something unfortunate happens to the balance, the piano becoming too predominant in the middle of the work. The Honegger is fine. On another disc (ATM _ 1006), Tanya Urey plays two solo sonatas, Alban Berg, Op. 1, and the Prokofieff No. 3 with a fill-up of the little Circus Polka by Stravinsky, written, as the annotation assures us, "for one of the younger elephants in Barnum and Bailey’s circus who commissioned the piece." This recording of the Alban Berg.sonata is long overdue. Berg’s Op. 1 was a notable event in the history of piano writing, being a link between the chromatic romanticism of Wagner and the new tonalities of the 20th Century. The Prokofieff No. 3 is one of his most assimilable and exciting piano sonatas.

a , Tanya Urey’s playing is clear, fluent and convincing, giving dash to the Prokofieff and sentiment but not sentimentality to the Alban Berg. The piano tone tends to be tubby but nevertheless this is a record essential to’ your compmnrorary "music collection, Speak the Word Only The music of strings, the music of the piano, and now the music of speech. Robert Speaight reads T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prutrock, The Hollow Mén and Ash Wednesday (Argo-ARS 1001). As far as I can rhake out, the readers of poetry and the listeners’ to the readers of poetry make their own rules as to what is good poetry reading. As for myself, I found Robert Speaight’s reading most moving, as eloquent as much music. Eliot’s poetry gains ‘new significance in Speaight’s intelligent and sonorous phrasing and bea as beautiful as one believed it ‘to These are all Argo records, and while not altogether a musical Odyssey are _well worth attentiof; but there is more and, to my mind, better to come. Argo, in ‘collaboration with the Indonesian Government, has brought out two discs of Music From Bali. These are mag- nificent. Or should I say so? How do I know, you’ might ask, that these Balinese players and singers are turning out the right notes and the right rhythms? The truth is, »f course, I don’t know; but the terrific ensemble, the virtuosity of the rhythms, the magical tintinnabulation of gongs, bells, cymbals and drums, the incredible singing are enough _to wonder at and a fascination exceeding almost anything else contemporary. Magnificent is the word for this music; and once you begin to feel the rhythms and are carried away by the sensuous tone colours, I think you will fall for the art of the Balinese too. That these two discs (Argo — ARS 1006-1007) are sponsored by the Indonesian Government is sufficient guarantee of their

authenticity. Music From Bali, which was recorded from an actual performance at the Wintergarden Theatre, London, "does ' not create a song for our ears" says the record cover, but "is a. ‘state’ such as moonlight pouring over the fiélds."’ You must hear it for yourself. Patronage on Record The gramophone record confers a dubious sort of immortality on the composer, dubious because too often in the past the choice of music to be embalmed in wax has seemed an arbitrary one -two more Beethoven Fifths, perhaps, an odd work of this composer and a pretty trifle by that one. Among English composers, Edmund Rubbra has been somewhat neglected. The bal-

ance has been a little adjusted by the | recent recording of his fifth Symphony in B Fiat, Op. 63, by HMV (DB 971518). Rubbra has the pleasant gift of being able to present musical platitudes engagingly, throwing in some really original music as well. His music has something of the serious manner of Brahms without the latter’s occasional pompousness. Rubbra’s themes are attractive enough and his harmonies, for the most part, fall innocently on the ears. He writes with more than competent craftsmanship. This is ingratiating music and the playing of the Halle Orchestra is superb. Those who have read up their histories a bit will have come across Balakirev, enthusiastic mentor of the 19th Century Russian "Five," a founding father of modern Russian music. You can make a closer acquaintance with this worthy of old Russia in his Sonata in B Flat for Piano played by Louis Kentner (Col. LX 1407-09), an improvisatory piece of music as spacious as the composer's native countryside. The Balakirev sonata -a curious sonata as sonatas go-pro-vides an admirable vehicle for Mr. Kentner’s virtuosity, in tone as well as agility. He makes the most of it. Another rewarding byway is explored by Decca in the recording of two compositions by contemporary Swiss composers. Christiane Montandon with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande plays a Concertino for Piano and Orchestra by Bernard Reichel (LXT 2703). On the reverse side there is a Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by Conrad Beck. Both of these composers have somthing to say, even if their stories are not altogether sunny. Enthusiasts who enjoy an occasional musical adventure could do no better than sample these and the Rubbra Symphony, too. |