"I KNOW WHAT I THINK...
MONTEVERDI'S CHURCH MUSIC AM usually rather sceptical of fashions in musical taste, and my approach to the programme of Monteyerdi broadcast recently from 2¥Z was conditioned accordingly; but at the end of half an hour of his church music superbly sung by the Schuola Veneziana, | was a whole-hearted supporter. "Beatus Vir," a setting of Psqlm 111 for six voices and orchestra, was a monument to Monteverdi's achievement in infusing the massive, slow-moving style of Palestrina with the rhythmic and harmonic subtleties of the secular madrigals, without sacrificing its essential dignity. Like Byrd, his English contemporary, Monteverdi combined a bold experimental outlook with a careful conservatism: his works for the church were not merely a watered-down yersion of Gesualdo’s sensuous chromaticisms-he was too well rooted in the ecclesiastical tradition to depart completely from the style in which so much great church. music had been written. The southern warmth and joyousness of these Psalm settings gave new life and a personal fervour to the musical part of liturgical worship: | feel Monteverdi and Guareschi’s Don Camillo would have seen eye to eye over this matter! The music, however, must be allowed to speak for itself-its clarity, its fundamental simplicity and its greatness of conception provide the listener with an artistic experience that is unfortunately
all too rare nowadays.
S.M.
R.
(Readers are invited to submit comments, not more than 200 words in length, on radio programmes, A fee of one guinea will be paid after publication. Contributions should be headed ‘‘Radio Review.’’ Unsuccessful entries cannot be returned.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 736, 21 August 1953, Page 10
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259"I KNOW WHAT I THINK... New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 736, 21 August 1953, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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