The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 791, 17 September 1954, Page 10

The Week's Music...

by

OWEN

JENSEN

TALE OF TWO CITIES: an opera by Arthur Benjamin based on the novel by Charles Dickens. The libretto by Cedric Cooke. Whatever the merits of the music or the performancé, the first presentation of Arthur Benjamin’s opera (YC link) must be put down as the broadcasting event of the week. In New Zealand we have too few opportunities of enjoying the impact of something entirely ‘new, of measuring our listening with a composition still running warm from the composer’s pen. The excitement of a first performance is quite different in character from the pleasurable stimulation of renewing acquaintance with music we already know. In listening to a new work, we are offered the privilege of sharing in the first fruits, as it were, of creative thinking. It may turn out to be good, It may disappoint. But whichever way it is, we have added to our musical experience, we have indeed, if only in a small way, undertaken a little creative thinking ourselves. And among all the debris of unrewarding new listening, there is always the happy chance that we will have happened on a new star in the musical galaxy. Whatever way you look at it, the broadcast of A Tale of Two Cities was a notable occasion. It was a little difficult in one performance to discover just how successful was Arthur Benjamin’s drama. Two hours and more of broadcast opera when the ears have to do all the work and the eyes cannot assist is, a big chunk of listening. The composer calls his work a "romantic melodrama." It certainly had

es romantic warmth and the dynamics of the orchestra writing gave plenty of colour to the drama. But at first hearing, one had to work hard to make it hang together. For one thing, most of the words of the chorus were completely unintelligible and a good deal of the solo story was lost, too. In opera, especially opera sung in English, it is fair to ask that the threads of the story should be comprehensible without the ear having to work overtime. Much of this should straighten itself out, however, at a second hearing, which we can hope will not be too far distant. Despite all this, there could be no doubt of the competency of Arthur Benjamin’s writing. Nor could there be any doubt about the first broadcast of the Alma Trio (YC link) the most superb trio playing we have had in these parts for many a long day, perhaps ever. Here were three players, each of the first rank, with complete understanding between them, and a sensitive appreciation of the sensuous beauties of the music of Schubert’s Trio in B Flat. A good mark must go, too, to the technicians who brought off the broadcast relay so admirably. Gabor Rejto and Adolph Baller’s Martinu Cello and Piano Sonata, which completed the broadcast, was a breathtaking piece of virtuosity. Noted in Passing: Another enjoyable trio performance by May Hannam, Frances Anderson and Althea HarleySlack of John Ireland’s Trio No: 3 in E Major (3YC); and some bright playing of. Vivaldi among other music by the Auckland String Players, with guest conductor Maurice Clare (1YC).