"EXTREMISTS WILL SHRIEK"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 8

"EXTREMISTS WILL SHRIEK"

ce HATEVER : one does / about programme plan‘ning, the extremists will shriek;*it: must be realised that there are always people who want to listen only to Hindemith, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, but we must be sensible about these things. The orchestra that caters only for the. extremes in musical tastes will soon find itself playing in empty or near empty halls." James Robertson, the new conductor, of the National Orchestra, expressed this view to The Listener in Auckland soon after his arrival from Britain. "The bulk of each programme has to be music that one knows is good and great-established music, Nevertheless, in nearly every programme there should

be something unfamiliar, of the sort that can be enjoyed. I am not in favour of mere note-spinning,’ Mr. Robertson said. "Within that scheme. I hope to provide as much variety as possible, to please audiences. as much as possible, and perhaps to educate a little, too." Within an hour or so of landing in this country Mr. Robertson’ was able to hear the orchestra giving a public concert-its final one in Auckland under the baton of Warwick Braithwaiteand, he said, he was most favourably impressed. Encouraging reports he had heard in England after accepting the post had been fully confirmed. Before that Mr. Robertson did not know very much about either this country or the orchestra. "But I am something of an adventurer, and it seemed a marvellous opportunity to come to a new and

lovely part of the world. It was a great attraction to have an orchestra which serves a whole Dominion. In London there are a lot of orchestras, all trying to do the same things-too many of them, perhaps. Then, too, I felt I had been in my previous post long enough. After eight years at Sadler’s Wells, where my main concern was opera, I needed a change, and felt it time to devote myself fully to a symphony orchestra." Mr. Robertson is accompanied by his wife, June, and their son, Duncan John. They plan to establish a home in Wellington. The family have been living in a Georgian house of about 150 years old, in Islington, London. "There were five floors and 70 steps, but only two. rooms to a floor, and a long narrow garden running out like a skittle alley from the back," Mrs. Robertson says. "We used the stairs to teach the little boy to count, but it will be a joy to be without them." In addition to his work as Director of Opera at Sadler’s Wells, where he has been conducting about 100 performances a year, Mr. Robertson has been doing a good deal of other conducting, both orchestral and choral, as well as broadcasting and lecturing. Mr. Robertson did not expect to undertake many activities here apart from his work with the orchestra. "Generally speaking,’ he ‘said, "conducting an orchestra’ such as yours is quite an onerous task, however enjoyable, and the number of other things one can do is strictly limited. Every hour one spends on such things as lecturing, or writing, even if one is

talking or writing about music, is an hour lost to actually making music." Mr. Robertson has studied conducting in Leipzig under Herman Abendreth, and at the Royal College of Music with Constant Lambert. At the College he took composition with C. H. Kitson and Gordon Jacob, and piano with Herbert Fryer. He has served on thé musical staff of the Glyndebourne Opera, and has been accompanist, conductor and chorus master with the Carl Rosa (Touring) Opera Company. Before the war he was conducting an orchestra for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.