Programmes for Christchurch

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 15

Programmes for Christchurch

HE Orchestra is to open its Christchurch Prom season with Douglas Lilburn’s Festival Overture (3YC, February 7), an appropriate gesture, for Douglas Lilburn may almost be said to have grown up as a composer in Christchurch. The Festival Overture was written, if I remember rightly, and having no reference to hand, for the 1940 Centenary celebrations, but has not been performed since that time. Apart from Lilburn’s work, the Christchurch programmes tread more or less familiar paths, which is no bad thing at this time of the year, when our listening is just being tuned up. For instance, there’s Tchaikovski’s Symphony No. 5 in E Minor (3YC, February 7). This is the sort of music in which it is easy to wallow, letting thought be engulfed in a sea of turgid emotion, enjoying vicariously the introspective melancholy and self-pity which the composer himself let overflow into the music. And, after all, what was good enough for Tchaikovski as a musical expression can hardly be cavilled at in the listener, But, although Tchaikovski dubbed himself no composer of sym-phonies-"What I write has always a mountain of padding: an experienced eye can detect the thread in my seams and I can do nothing about it’--there is much more to his music than torrents of sound and voluptuous tunes. The seams

may show, but the colours of the fabric are always rich and the energy and vitality of the musi¢ cannot be denied. There’s still a bit of prospecting to be done in the Tchaikovski goldfield. A work that still yields much gold, despite many playings, is Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole for violin and orchestra (SYC, February 9). It was Manuel de Falla, I think, who said that the best Spanish music was written by Frenchmen. Lalo has certainly caught what everyone believes to be the typical Spanish atmosphere which is, in fact, the colour of Andalusia. It is in the richness of the orchestration, in the lilt of the melodies, but most of all, in the rhythms, It’s a long time since I heard Vincent Aspey play the Symphonie Espagnole. This is musie that is right down his alley. It comes naturally to him. And for a work like this which demands rhythm and emotional flexibility that is the only way it can come off. But the most interesting programme to be broadcast from Christchurch is probably the Verdi group of opera overtures and arias with Dora Drake and Laszlo Rogatsy as soloists (YC link, February 10). The great operatic battle in the 19th Century was between Verdi and Wagner. In the long run, I rather fancy Verdi will win.

Owen

Jensen