Hope Unfulfilled
HE microphone is not always kind to its friends. It seemed this way in the broadcast-a national link-of Hindemith’s Canticle to Hope to words by Paul Claudel. Written by poet and composer for Unesco as a contribution to international understanding, and performed by a choir of 250, an orchestra of 100, 36 brass and grand organ, with the audience roped in for the climax, this should have been as inspifing an occasion as it was significant. That it wasn’t like this was largely due to grievous miscalculation by the recording engineers. The freshness of the voices was lost, the orchestra, for the most part, retreated into the vocal
thicket, the brass only oceasionally became really brassy. Altogether, Hindemith’s music sounded a bleak rather than a hopeful prospect. The composer, in an introduction to the work, had written: "Music must be brought back to simple forms," which is fair enough; and to this end he even wrote bits and pieces towards the end for the audience. But, after all, we in New Zealand linked together by wide-band line, were the audience for the occasion. We were very much out of it, French language and all. Maybe, bad recording or good, this was not a "performance that should have been broadcast. Sometimes, at least, you have to be there.
O.
J.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540528.2.21.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 10
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221Hope Unfulfilled New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, 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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