PRODIGY'S RETURN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 723, 22 May 1953, Page 18

PRODIGY'S RETURN

CCOMPANIED by his attractive English wife, Ruth Stanfield, the young New Zealand violinist Alan Loveday arrived the other day by air to begin a 10-weeks’ tour of his native land. Interviewed at Wellington, he told The Listener he had cancelled a passage by sea when he learned it was necessary to rise at five in the morning in order to practise. That was too much, even for one whose talent and application have taken him to a position near the top in British music since he left New Zealand 13 years ago. In that time Alan Loveday has completed formal studies at the Royal College of Music and has fulfilled many important concert engagements. The musician who first performed on a small violin at the age of three, and on borrowed instruments during his years as a student, now plays a £3000 Stradivarius-his own. The Strad, he told The Listener, was acquired about six months ago. It had belonged to a wealthy. amateur, "who played it for about five minutes on Sundays." In New York, en route to New

Zealand, he was offered 13,000 dollars (about £4600) for the instrument, but refused to part with it. Alan Loveday’s rise to musical eminence began when he was still a student at the Royal College of Music. He performed with -the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Sunday celebrity concerts at the People’s Palace (a London concert hall) during the war, and later was

chosen to appear at the Albert Hall Promenade concerts. He suspects that the famous conductor Basil Cameron had something to do with this engagement after a session as guest conductor with the Royal College Orchestra. The young violinist has performed at the Proms reach year since his first engagement. Though he has not toured widely, the New Zealand tour is not Mr. Loveday’s first. While still a student, he performed at Antwerp, and later appeared on concert platforms in Spain and in the Canary Islands. "Yes, there are two orchestras in the Canaries," he said "and although amateur they are very good." When he leaves New Zealand he will tour Australia, and he has been engaged for New York appearances on his way back to England. During his stay in New Zealand Mr. Loveday hopes to show New Zealanders something of what he has accomplished during his years abroad, for it was New Zealand music-lovers who originally subscribed the money to allow him to study. Even to the unmusical he will be able to prove he has not wasted his time. His long hours with the violin have left him with the purely physical proofs of a permanently bent left elbow and slightly — fingers on the "left hand.