The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 812, 18 February 1955, Page 10

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

"POETA fit, non nascitur,’ says Lewis Carroll, and in the same way musicians may be made rather than born. One of the instruments in the making, so to speak, is undoubtedly the annual Cambridge Music School, which has just celebrated its tenth birthday. Owen Jensen, in his programme Music Magazine (YC link), showed us a few facets of the process with excerpts-I wish some had been longer-from the rehearsed work of various groups present. The remarkable thing was the number of wind instruments that seemed to be there: a band of 25 of them made a fair stab at a Mozart Serenade, and the unusual combination of two oboes and cor anglais played some of a rather unbuttoned Beethoven Trio. The latter, in particular, could have gone on much longer without palling, except for those who hold the well-known opinion of the oboe. A string group, who tackled (in the Rugby sense) the Sextet in G of Brahms, had admirable balance and cohesion, their single fault being poor intonation; while a madrigal group was similarly balanced and intoned. Another "rare" work was the Mozart three-piano Concerto, which I don’t think has yet

been recorded. In fact, the most notable thing about the programme wags the diversity of musicians and music; the school, as a school, was obviously a success. Perhaps I was a little unfair to Lance Dossor last week; but then I had not heard him at his best. This happy event was celebrated, by both of us, more recently. The,occasion was his playing (YC link) of some Scarlatti at his most piquant and brilliant, and more especially a few pieces of more than ordinary languor by Schumann. In particular, I liked the Arabeske, in which he varied the repeated passages, as so few pianists do, so that the incipient tautologies never actually happened. The Scarlatti was cut on classical lines of sustained clarity and freshness. Several of the coming soloists with the National Orchestra would seem to be giving their talents a preliminary airing; the latest was Edna Boyd-Wilson, who sang a group of Italian airs (3YC) with her usual delicacy and aplomb. The same night I heard accidentally Virginia Paris (NZBS) in a programme of Negro Spirituals. I refuse to draw comparisons, but these nostalgic airs of the carry-me-back type suited her contralto well.