SINGING and SCENERY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 743, 9 October 1953, Page 7

SINGING and SCENERY

This is the third of five articles written for "The Listener" by the visiting English music critic

ARTHUR

JACOBS

; the. first time since 1948 ‘T missed the Edinburgh Festival this year. It normally forms the most exhausting part of my rounds as a music critic--with operas and concerts morning and evening, and sometimes’ in the afternoon, too---but it never fails ta be musically exciting. This year I sampled the Dunedin Music Festival instead. *-T. am not meaning to belittle Dunedin with an. absurd comparison. I have come to know. that some of the most rewarding musical experiences soccur-in unexpected, out-of-the-way places. But a. threefold depression invaded me at that opening concert---first,*to see the large, handsome Dunedin Town»Hall virtually empty. In the programme. was’ the Mayor’s exhortation to’ everyone to attend the festival, but I.did not notice any .civic representation’ among the audience. Second depression -to hear , a quite inadequate performance by the Dunedin Festival Choir, a body compounded of several local groups. . These singers lacked vigour, confidence, precision. — Third depression-to find the evening taken up almost entirely by Sir George Dyson’s cantata, The Canterbury Pilgrims. This dull, respectable music all but smothers Chaucer’s lively text. Why was it performed? In Britain one extract, The Wifetof Bath (on this occasion very well sung by Dora Drake) has been made popular by Isobel Baillie. But otherwise the work has little standing. In the last six years I have not encountered one single performance in my duties as a music critic-except one performance, mercifully ‘abbreviated, in Sheffield. There are so many important works by important composers that are completely or almost unknown in New Zealand that it seems a pity "to cultivate such works as this. In general, I suspect that New Zealand devotes too much time to Britain’s second and third-line composers-to the Dysons and Rowleys and Thimans-and not enough time to the important ones. If another choir is seeking a lengthy British work worth tackling, I recommend such examples as Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time, Constant Lambert’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament, or Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony, This last is very difficult, needing a boys’ as well as an adult choir, but its stunning brilliance makes it worth the trouble. Or why not try a non-British modern work? How about Stravinsky’s magnificently barbaric The Wedding? Here is a work that does not need a professiona! symphony orchestra’s accompaniment, as the only instruments required are four pianos_ and assorted percussion. Or the choir might try a British masterpiece of the immediate past, like Delius’s Sea Drift. Or, they might be really daring and essay that unknown composer, Handel. (Oh, those dull minds who think that by performing Messiah they have "done" Handel!) But, farewell to fancy, and. back to that concert in Dunedin. The Canterbury Pilgrims was accompanied _ by the National Orchestra in a style not adequately finished, but at least sturdy enough to pull the choir through, The strings of the orchestra also gave Vaughan ...Williams’s- Fantasia on a

Theme of Tallis. The opening of this with its, soft, rich, widely-spaced chords, is like "hothing else that had ever been written When this work appeared in 1910. If the devotional air appropriate ‘to a huge Gothic cathedral can ever be expressed in music, this is that music. ‘But this ‘performance under Warwick Braithwaite was at best matter-of-fact. and.at worst marred by bad intonation and by lack of expression. I hope for something. better from the National Orchestra in the Auckland performance whieh I shall teview: in next week’s article. Early one Sunday morning I left Dunedin by bus for Christchurch, via Timaru. Oh, the wonderful scenery ‘on the first: part of that journey! The’ green hills roll delightfully as the bus takes the winding road. On the left, the towering Southern Alps, reminding me of Switzerland, and by no means belying their name. On the right. the blue Pacific. Other mountain scenery, equally inspiring, unfolded itself to the view during my flight from Christchurch to Wellington. Such things are ranked as only minor attractions by those who know New Zealand better than I., But that is in itself an indication of what a tourist centre this country could be. But for that, of course, a high explosive would have to be put under the present prevailing ideas of what constitutes satisfactory catering and accom. modation. I was lucky enough to strike comfortable private hotels in Christchurch and Auckland. But the casual meals in restaurants are nightmares. Do New Zealanders themselves want nothing better? In Wellington I found restaurant owned by Greeks. But there was no moussaka on the menu, no shish kebab, none of the other tasty dishes,

which make Greek restaurants famous in London. "Nobody here would take them," said the owner. But if the food in Wellington disappointed me, I found a musical dish very much to my liking. Mind, it was not fully cooked: this was a rehearsal. not a concert. But no one hearing the Schola Cantorum, even on this occasion, could doubt that the ingredients were tested by the highest standards. The Schola Cantorum is sometimes known, as its conductor Stanley Oliver smilingly told me. as "the choir with the funny name." As a matter of fact, its name could almost be interpreted literally. It might, indeed be taken as a "school for singers," or, at any rate, as a group which could teach choral bodies all over New Zealand what is meant by a really high standard in programmemaking. Its current programme (which will already have been broadcast by the time this article appears) includes a Mass by Byrd, from the age of Queen Elizabeth I, and another Mass of very recent com-

positions by Edmund Rubbra. Antony Hopkins, one of the new British composers who have emerged since the war. also has his place. I found it even more gratifying to hear the choir rehearsing a work by the American composer Randall Thompson and another by Hindemith. Even in London we hear too few works from America; even in London, "modern music" is too often simplified to mean "modern British music.’ High standards of ‘performance, as well as programme-making, were also evident in the rehearsal. I see that Sir Malcolm Sargent called the Schola Cantorum "a. Grade A_ choir anywhere." Much as I like sparring with conductors, I cannot see myself picking a quarrel on that point. Also in Wellington I had the pleasure of lecturing to the Chamber Music Society about some recent developments in chamber music at home. But I almost felt the lecture should be the other way round. I could not help contrasting this society, which is so well supported that it has a waiting list for members, with similar bodies in England which are always begging equally for members and for funds. And so to Auckland-where the local morning paper began its report of my university lecture by ascribing to me. an epigram which I had carefully said wa3 Bernard Shaw’s, and by quoting the epieram wrongly, anyway. Georg Tintner, the enterprising exViennese who conducts a number of Auckland musical groups, tells me that his forthcomine performance of Bruckner’s Mass in F Minor may well be the first anywhere in the British Commonwealth. Yet I am surprised to see that the National Orchestra’s performance of erlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, a work that is among the most commonly heard symphonies in Britain, advertised as "first performance in\New Zealand." Such contrasts, such surprises, beset the musical visitor everywhere here. But. they are grist to the critic’s mill. And this critic has found them so interesting that he has tacked a week extra on to his intended stay before answering the call elsewhere.