VARIED NZBS CONCERT SEASON FOR 1955

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 811, 11 February 1955, Page 6

VARIED NZBS CONCERT SEASON FOR 1955

HIS' year’s contingent of overseas and local artists to appear under the auspices of the NZBS comprises several established artists well known through their recordings to music-lovers here, and also several younger artists who are not as yet so well known. The season will not be without its novelties with the appearance in late March of the English concert comedienne, Anna Russell, whose devastating wit, combined with an equally devastating appearance, is guaranteed to leave audiences gasping-with laughter. Miss Russell will be giving solo recitals only. In July the harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler will be heard in a series of recitals in the four main centres, and will also play with the National Orchestra in Wellington and Auckland. One of his items will be the Vaughan Williams Romance for Harmonica and Orchestra, which had its first performance in the 1952 season of Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall under the baton of, Sir Malcolm Sargent. Jean Berger and Darius Milhaud have also composed works especially for him. A welcome return to his native country is that of the pianist Colin Horsley, who will be appearing in April in concerto performances with the National Orchestra and also in chamber music recitals with Max Rostal, the celebrated . British violinist. Colin Horsley comes from Wanganui, and has had a remarkable career overseas. He was recently appointed Professor at the Royal College of Music, and last October was soloist with Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall at a_ concert attended by H.R.H. the Princess Margaret and H.R.H. the Princess Alice. Critics have been unanimously loud in their praise of his work, and they consider him an outstanding interpreter of modern piano music. He is to play with the Orchestra the Rawsthorne Concerto No. 2, the Beethoven Concerto No. 3 and the Symphonic Variations of Cesar Franck. Although Max Rostal was born in Austria, he is now regarded as a British artist. He made his first European tour at the age of seven after only a year’s tuition. He studied with Carl Flesch in Berlin, and at 17 began his professional career with a tour of Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland, Poland, Norway and Hungary. He settled in Britain in 1934 and is now Professor at the Guildhall School of Music. He broadcasts frequently for the BBC and is in great demand as a recording artist, besides making concert tours which take him all over the world. Max Rostal possesses one of the finest Stradivarius violins, made in 1697, and also the famous "Charles Reade’ Guarnerius del Gesu violin. When he appears with the National Orchestra in June; Rostal will play the Beethoven Violin Concerto in Auckland and Wellington, and the Bartok concerto in Wellington only. He will also give several public and studio recitals in the main centres. Irene Kohler is an English pianist who is to come to New Zealand in September. For four years she was a pupil of Arthur Benjamin’s at the Royal College of Music, and then studied in Viensia. She made her debut in ‘the first Promenade Concert of the 40th season, in 1934, and since then has giyen, many public and broadcast recitals and appeared with leading British and European orchestras. She has given first per-

formances in England of Eugene Goossens’s '/Phantasy Concerto, and’ Jean Francaix's Concertino. Miss Kohler is to play Beethoven’s "Emperor" Concerto in Dunedin, and Gershwin’s seldomheard Concerto in F in Auckland. Two other overseas pianists will also be heard during the season. Ventsislav Yankoff, a 29-year-old Bulgarian pianist, bas already had a brilliant career after study in Germany, and in Paris under Marguerite Long, He has toured Europe, South America and North Africa. The London Times describes him as a pianist of the highest promise and of considerable accomplishment. Besides solo recitals, Mr. Yankoff will play the Beethoven Concerto No. 4 in Wellington and Christchurch. Jascha Spivakov-. sky, one of the former SpivakovskyKurtz Trio which toured New Zealand in 1936, has been resident in Australia for a number of years. He teaches piano at the Melbourne University Conservatorium. All ten Spivakovskys were musicians and Jascha gave concerts when he was seven. After the Russian Revolution, the Spivakovskys moved to Germany, where Jascha madé his reputation. In Auckland he is to play Tchaikovski’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on August 11, and in Wellington the Brahms No. 2 on August 17. Smaller centres will have the chance to listen to some concerto playing when Wellington pianist Cara Hall visits Hamilton, New Plymouth and Wanganui at the end of March. Miss Hall is to play the Mozart D Minor Concerto in Wanganui. Maurice Till, of Dunedin, is to play in his home city on May 5. He will perform the Dohnanyi Varia-

tions on a Nursery Theme, which he will repeat when he goes north to Auckland on August 10. The Auckland pianist, David Galbraith is to play Schubert’s "Wanderer" Fantasy in Christchurch on May 16, and also in Wellington five days later.

The piano and violin have not got it all to themselves as solo instruments, though, National Orchestra leader Vincent Aspey’s playing of the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole in Whangarei in August will be matched by first oboist Norman Booth’s playing of the Oboe Concerto by Gordon Jacob in Christchurch on July 16. This promises to be a good year for choral singing with the Orchestra. On Septembef 20, the Dunedin baritone Ninian Waldén- will take the solo part with the Christchurch Harmonic Society in a performance of William Walton’s splendid and barbaric oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. Two days later the Royal Christchurch Chora] Society will sing with the Orchestra Herbert Howell's Hymnus Paradisi, with the soprano Dora Drake and tenor Ronald Dowd as soloists. Beethoven’s Choral Symphony will be performed in Auckland (September 13), Dunedin (October 29) and Wellington (November 5), with groups of soloists from each centre. At the Auckland Festival in. May Robin Gordon (tenor) will take the solo part in a performance of Gerald Finzi’s setting of William Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality, Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth will be heard in September in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.