THREE MEN OF MUSIC

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

THREE MEN OF MUSIC

F it’s love that makes the world go round, 3 you can still get round the world very successfully on music-as the Alma Trio, now touring New Zealand, has proved. The Trio. comes from San Francisco, but only Maurice Wilk, their violinist, is an American. "I was actually born in New York," he says, "and that makes me rather a rare bird." Adolf° Baller, the Trio’s pianist, is

Polish, but received his musical education in Vienna, where he made his debut at eight as soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1938, after establishing an excellent reputation on the Continent, he arrived in. the United States to become Yehudi Menuhin’s accompanist in sonata recitals. Since 1944, when the Alma Trio was formed, he has divided his activities between re-

citals with both the Trio and Yehudi Menuhin, and teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. New Zealanders can regard Gabor Rejto, the brilliant ‘cellist, as an old friend. Last year he toured this country with Yaltah Menuhin, giving sonata recitals which were widely appreciated. In an interview recorded in San Francisco before the Trio left Mr. Rejto said he greatly admired New Zealand’s chamber music movement, manifested as it was not only in the main centres

but in towns "like Timaru," with a relatively small population. Mr. Rejto is Hungarian by birth and graduated with _ honours from the Royal Academy at Budapest. Unlike Maurice © Wilk, who took up his instrument at four, Gabor Rejto began to play the ‘cello at nine, "because, you know, the ‘cello is a pretty big instrument for a small boy to handle." After study with the renowned Casals and extensive | concertgiving in Europe, Rejto and his Domenica Monagnana ‘cello migrated to the United States in 1939. , In the summer of 1944 Rejto, Baller and Roman Totenberg, the violinist, were staying at Yehudi Menuhin’s Californian estate of Alma when they thought of forming a permanent group. What.

could be more natural than that the Trio should adopt the name of the place where it had come into being? Since those first concerts on the West Coast they have toured all over the United States. Last year Maurice Wilk succeeded Roman Totenberg as violinist. His first professional appearance had been at fourteen, as soloist in a Bach Concerto with the Mutual Broadcasting System Orchestra. Later he was associated with Toscanini in the NBC Symphony and with the Stuyvesant Quartet. He then became concert-master of the Brooklyn Symphony under Sir Thomas Beecham and, during the war, of the Army Air Force Radio Orchestra. After the war he toured Europe and the important cities of the United States. The Alma Trio are giving concerts here for the New Zealand Federation of Chamber Music Societies in association with the NZBS. Highlights of the tour should be performances of the Beethoven Triple Concerto in Christchurch on September 11, and the Brahms Double Concerto in Dunedin on September 14, both with the National Orchestra. The Trio will also visit Gisborne, Hastings, New Plymouth, Hamilton, Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Timaru and Invercargill. Radio listeners will be able to hear, in the first part of the tour, broadcasts from 2XG on Monday, August 30, 2YC on ‘fuesday, August 31, 2XP on September 2, 1XH on Friday, September 3, and all YC stations on Saturday, September 4. The Alma Trio’s programmes will include, besides music by Mozart, Schubert, Bach, Brahms and Beethoven, comparative novelties in a ‘cello sonata by the modern Rumanian Martinu, the Ravel Trio in A Minor and Bartok’s First Sonata for Violin and Piano.