Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 802, 3 December 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

HAMMERKLAVIER

HE New Zealander’s reputation for an ability to turn a hand to any task is deserved in David Galbraith, the 26-year-old Auckland pianist, who can use hammer or klavier with equal efficiency, and still manage to stay well tempered withal, Invited to Wellington by Donald Munro to pro-

duce .Menotti’s The Telephone for the New Zealand Opera

Group, David Galbraith found himself designing and constructing the set, playing the piano and conducting the orchestra-as well as producing. Short of something to do in the other half of the programme, he played a mime part in La Serva Padrona. Was it in the interval, or the following evening that he gave a studio recital from 2YC? "I do remember I had sore hands and stiff arms and wrists from hammering nails into the set," says this young, talented player. David Galbraith returned to New Zealand just before the last Auckland festival, after five years in Britain studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London and giving recitals. He plans to go overseas again in the coming year--and to’ visit South America. for he has a fondness for

Spanish music. Meantime, admirers in his homeland have several opportunities to hear his. work. Listeners may hear David Galbraith in the current five link programmes with the flautist James Hopkinson. These are being broadcast from the YCs at p.m. oh

DEAD SILENCE

[:LLESTON TREVOR, adaptor of the BBC serial Dead Silence, which starts from 2YA at 4.0 p.m. on Monday, December 6, was recently nominated by the New York Times as one of the top three suspense writers of the year. The first instalment of his latest radio thriller, based on the story by "Simon Rattrav." opnens with the

violent death in a railway tunnel of a brilliant research scientist, and ends

With te cry OL a Tetired biologist fatally bitten by a black mamba in his own private zoo. Elleston Trevor began writing during war service in the R.A.F. Under his own name and two pen names-"Warwick Scott" and "Simon Rattray"-he has written a score of novels (four of which have been made into films), a dozen children’s books, and about 100 short stories. During the past year or so twelve of his plays have been broadcast by the BBC, many of them featuring a new style sleuth, Hugh Bishop, whose interest in crime is combined with a passion for playing chess and racing around the countryside in a "vintage car." Still .in his thirties, Trevor is married and has one young son, Peregrine. His attractive blonde wife Jonni takes an active part in her husband’s literary career by acting as a "woman of all work." The Trevors live in a Regency house at Brighton, which has been converted to a _ hotel, and Elleston’s study is the ballroom. "I work in one corner of the room behind a screen," he says. "It’s a most restful atmosphere." +

OUT OF BED

HE life of a concert pianist has its more strenuous moments. For instance, there was the experience the

Qther day of the Australian pianist Nancy Weir, when she was giving one of the last of a series of studio broadcasts from linked YC stations. The pianist was staying at an Auckland

hotel, and her next recital was timed for Sunday evening. She went down to the NZBS studios for a few

hours’ solid practice in the afternoon, then walked back to the hotel. had a

bath and lay down for a short rest before the broadcast. As the time approached the studio became the usual scene of activity. Technicians cleared the land-lines, the studio piano was placed in readiness-but as the seconds ticked around on the studio clock no pianist appeared. A quick phone call to the hotel established that Nancy Weir was still asleep in bed. She got dressed in record time, jumped into a taxi, and was at the studio only six minutes after the scheduled starting time. Meanwhile fill-in music had been broadcast-and after all. the excitement Nancy Weir's recital was one of the best of her tour. Later she apologised for forgetting to leave instructions with the hotel clerk to-be wakened~in time; But such acci-’ dents are liable to happen in the bestregulated lives! — y

THE "GECZY" STYLE

STARTED with classical music. At six I gave my first concert. Later, I led the Opera House Orchestra in Budapest, After that I toured Scandinavia with a’ trio, always playing classical music. Then one day I heard a tune On an Ofchestrion. It was a dance tune. I liked it. I went home and rewrote it. I played it, and a beautiful

_blonde Norwegian girl -my wife-tiked it. I got a band together. We started playing.

a.nd since, there has been applause." In these words Barnabas. von Geczy, a Hungarian aristocrat who plays popular music in a style all his own, once explained the secret of his success. The Geczy style in music is a way of "refining" popular tunes by masterly reorchestration which robs them of none of their rhythm or melody, but makes them sound different and reveals hitherto hidden beauties. Barnabas von Geczy was ‘very popular on the Continent before the war, and made his headquarters in Germany, Since the war a new group

of recordings by him have come out, and a number of them are now being broadcast by the NZBS. ; ©

scoTts af WHA HAE

nm ORN in 1919 in Steelend,.a Fifeshire mining village, Campbell Nicol (tenor) was the son of a miner and won his first prize for singing’ when he was five. During the war he served with the First Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, and took part in the Dunkirk evacuation. He began serious voice study under Madame Beatrice Minanda in 1946, and two years later emigrated to New Zea-

land, marrying upon his arrival a Scots lass whom he had met on the ship. He went back to

the Old Country in 1950 and was soon in demand for Scottish songs with variety shows in the London halls. He appeared with Jim Davidson, the former Australian dance barnd.leader, and Toralf Tollefsen, the famous Norwegian accordionist. He also broadcast. in. the BBC’s Palace of Varieties. Early this year he returned to New Zealand, and since settling in Tuatapere he has been heard regularly in Scottish song recitals from 4YZ. His next broadcast will be ' at 8.29 p.m. on Wednesday, December 8. He has also recorded four groups of songs which are proving popular in Scottish sessions from the YA stations. Campbell Nicol counts among his intimate Scottish friends the country dance expert Jimmy Shand, and the comedian Alec Finlay. He has been associated with both of them in the Scottish entertainment world.

NEWS FROM HOME

= Y memories of Australia and New Zealand are so fresh and pleasant hat it is difficult to accept the calendar’s reminder that nearly a year has passed since my visit,’ Arthur Jacobs writes to us in a brief news-letter from London. "I should first report that I wrote about my visit in the Manchester

Guardian and the Musical Times, and

have found among professional musicians a good deal of interest in Australian and New

Zealand musical developments. ‘Of course, Goossens .. .’ is the normal first Teaction; and constant stimulation is provided by Australian and New Zealand performers achieving prominence here..I lectured to a gramophone society at Eastbourne, using chiefly records kindly given me by. the Australasian Performing Right Association in Sydney, and found that Antill’s Corroboree aroused particular interest. "Music in London and at various festivals continues to keep a critic busy.

At the Cheltenham Festival of British Contemporary Music I was pleased to discover notable works by two ‘new’ composers-the third symphony of Stanley Bate (b. 1913), and a clarinet concerto by Alun Hoddinott (b, 1929). At the Three Choirs’ Festival at. Worcester, an impressive work in a deliberately simple style was Vaughan Williams’s new Christmas cantata, This Day. The Edinburgh Festival, little concerned with new music, presented many fine performers-among them Sir John

Barbirolli and Mattiwilda Dobbs (soprano), both of whom are to visit Australia shortly. At Edinburgh, the Glyndebourne Opera added to its repertory Rossini’s Count Ory, a delightful comedy which I much enjoyed: in Italy two. years ago; operas at Glynde- |

bourne itself included Stravinsky's The Rake’s Progress, with a libretto in English, which well deserves staging by an Australian company. An English composer now emerging in opera, by the way, is Lennox Berkeley-with the serious Nelson and the light-hearted A Dinner Engagement. "My visit to Rome for the Conference on 20th Century Music, where I had the interesting experience of interviewing Stravinsky, I have already written to you about. . Among the many musicians from various countries whom ' I met in Rome was the young New Zealand composer Edwin Carr, now ‘studying there. "T have been writing about these and other matters for the English papers, and have also been translating Italian opera. In addition, I have been working on the new musical dictionary commissioned from me by Penguin ‘Books. Despite the press of work, however, I hope that my next visit to Australia and New Zealand will not be too long delayed."

ON AND OFF THE RECORD NEWS OF BROADCASTERS,