French Music of Today

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 811, 11 February 1955, Page 21

French Music of Today

T’S not usual for a woman to be taken seriously as a composer in France, so there should be special interest in a work to be heard from 2YC at 7.0 p.m. on Thursday, February 17. With this work, fittingly enough an overture, Germaine Tailleferre opens the first of four programmes of contemporary French music which are to go’the rounds of YC stations; Germaine Tailleferre is a remarkable pianist and a member of the "Group of Six."" She wrote the overture (which listeners will hear played by the Radio Symphonic Orchestra) in 1934, when she was 42. The melody of the work has the simplicity of French foix songs, and the mood is gay. On the same programme as the overture is the fiith symphony of Jean Rivier, Professor of Composition at the National Conservatory of Music. This will be played by the National Orchestra of the French Radio, the orchestra which first performed it at the Strasbourg Festival in 1951. Neither Germaine Tailleferre nor Jean Rivier will be as well known to many listeners as some of the composers whose works are to be heard in later programmes of Contemporary French Music. The second and third are devoted entirely to Jacques Ibert and Arthur Honegger, who studied together at the Paris Conservatoire. Ibert is represented by his Symphonie Concertante for oboe and orchestra, and Honegger by his fifth symphony, both played by the National Orchestra of the French Radio. Jules Goetgeluck is the solo oboist in the first of these programmes. The series ends with works by Ravel"Three Madagascan Songs" and "Alborada del Gracioso"-and Florent Schmitt -‘‘Sextet for Clarinets." All of the recordings used were made available by the Transcription Service of the French Broadcasting System.