The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 786, 13 August 1954, Page 10

The Week's Music...

by

OWEN

JENSEN

‘| HERE have been quite a _ few splashes of interesting, off-the-beaten-path music through the microphone the last few nights. Not the least of this was from some enterprising choral societies. The Royal Christchurch Musical Society with the 3YA Orchestra conducted by E. R. Field-Dodgson, gave us a noble performance of Dona Nobis Pacem, by Vaughan Williams (3YC), a tough nut for any group of singers and one which, incidentally, the Christchurch Society cracked a little more successfully than Mendelssohn’s Hymn: of Praise which they sang first. From Christchurch, too, came a session with the Liederkranzchen conducted by John Ritchie (3YC). With all due respect to the ladies, there is a limit to the charms of their voices in concert, unsupported by the less angelic and even earthy foundation of tenors and basses. Nevertheless, despite the competition of some of the earthier voices coming in as an Empire Games broadcast from an adjacent ZB, it was obvious that Mr. Ritchie’s singers had many of these chaams. The sopranos seemed to overtop the altos a little, but the general effect measured up to the music they sang, which was a cycle, Songs of Delight, by Philip Canon. Something new was added to our listening repertoire, too, by the Wellington Teachers’ College

presentation of Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb (2YC). Hearing a new chamber music ensemble on the air, one of the things that occurs to me-if they’re any good -is how they can be persuaded to carry on the work, for a musical ensemble, like wine, improves with keeping together. It was good, therefore, to hear the broadcast of a Trio in D Minor, by the Czech composer Vitezslay Novak announced as the first of a series by the Ostova Chamber Music Ensemble (2YC). These three players (Leela. Bloy, Greta Ostova and Ormi Reed) gave a sympathetic and lively performance of music that may neyer shake the world but was, for all that, uncommonly interesting. Incidentally, the microphone placing seemed to be making the best of the music, too." Talking about microphone placing and all that sort of thing, I can only conclude, after hearing Frederick Page’s second broadcast on the clavichord, that this instrument must be one of the most unbroadcastable. Apart from the fact that the tone was hardly "the still smal voice" of the clavichord, there was a background clacking that may possibly have been Mr. Page shuddering at the thought of how his sounds were going out on the air, or, more likely, the clanking of the tangents on the strings.