Concertos and Chamber Music

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 773, 14 May 1954, Page 7

Concertos and Chamber Music

N old Anglo-Saxon belief is that anything French has a warmth and colour and dash not found in northern parts. This reputation is at present being nourished in New. Zealand by a pair of touring artists, Brigitte de Beaufond and Charles Lilamand. Playing the violin and the piano respectively, the

two have won critical acclaim for lively performances. Said one Auckland critic: . "-. ,. they produced in their music a fire and a degree of temperament that we have expected and not always found in some visitors of greater renown. These two are demonstrative players, uninhibited in their playing actions and unusually warm in: emotional feeling." Another referred to the pleasant change from players who stand or sit "like graven images" to a pair of musicians "suiting their actions to the music."

In the coming week these two volatile musicians will give concerto performances with the National Orchestra of the NZBS. At Christchurch on Saturday, May 15, Brigitte de Beaufond will perform Mozart’s Concerto in D, K.218, and at Dunedin on Monday, May 17, Charles Lilamand will be .heard in Liszt’s Concerto No. 2 in A Major. The Christchurch concert will be broadcast by Stations 2, 3 and 4YC, the relay beginning at 8.0 p.m. The Dunedin concert will be broadcast by 4YC, beginning at 8.0 p.m., and the second half only by Stations 1, 2 and 3YC, beginning at 9.0 p.m. Like most artists, the French couple use individual names though they are, in fact, Monsieur and Madame Lilamand. They have known each other since 1937, and followed similar careers, but it was not until they were billed simultaneously for concerts in London three years ago that they decided to wed. Both studied at the Conservatoire National de Paris and both won that institution’s first prize for their respective instruments. Mlle. de Beaufond studied «under Boucherit and Jacques Thibaud, and M. Lilamand under such masters as Walter Gieseking and Alfred Cortot. The German occupation, they say, made little difference to their careers. They continued to play and minded their own business. Their current New Zealand appearances come at the end of a five-months’ tour of the Far East, Indonesia and Australia. After this they will return to France for a short time before undertaking a sixmonths’ tour of Germany, Italy, Egypt and Persia. The consequence of this heavy touring programme is that the couple see little of their Paris home and of their two children. They answer a vehement Gallic non to the question of musical careers for the young Lilamands. The life, they consider, is far too difficult, In addition to the concerto performances, six of the French couple’s cham-

ber music recitals are being broadcast. After their tour ends, on May 18, NZBS stations will broadcast four further recitals from the studio. Orchestra at Timaru Following its Christchurch and Dunedin visits, the National Orchestra will give a concert in Timaru, on Thursday, May 20. This will be its first appearance in that city with Warwick Braithwaite as conductor. The _ programme will consist of Schubert’s "Rosamunde" ballet music, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D, Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor, and Tchaikovski’s 1812 Overture. The soloist in the concerto will be Vincent Aspey, leader of the National Orchestra. English born, Vincent Aspey was educated in New Zealand and studied music at the Sydney Conservatorium. He was leading violinist in the Australian Broadcasting Orchestra from 1928 to 1932. Returning to New

Zealand in 1936 he was appointed leader of 1YA’s_ Studio Orchestra, and later leader of the NBS String Orchestra and String Quartet. He was a first violin in the Centennial Orchestra formed in 1940, and became leader of the National Orchestra on its foundation in 1946. Since then he has frequently performed as soloist with the orchestra, his Timaru appearance being the first of two in this season. alone. In addition to his orchestral work, Vin-

cent Aspey is heard periodically in studio broadcasts, with his wife at the piano, and in recitals with the Almo String Quartet. The quartet derives its title from the names of its members: Aspey and Lawson, violins; Meier, viola; and Ostova, ’cello, The entire Timaru concert will -be broadcast by 3XC, the relay beginning at 8.0 p.m. > % }