The Week’s Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 10

The Week’s Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

ATURALLY eénotigh, I’ve been straining on all valves to catch every cadence of the Prom Concerts from the southern centres. It seers that at last we have a conductor who has caught the fickle fancy of a captious public, and who has found the imaginaty line running round the middle of their brow. Every concert seemed to be packed to the doors, and the applause, if not. discriminating, was at least whole-hearted, at times even fullthroated. Apart from matters of mere taste, Mr. Robertson has improved the orchestral quality-there is a far better response from the strings, the brass are making music as well as noise, and the woodwind are working as a team rather than as a collection of individuals. Some of their recent work I have rarely heard equalled--even on the hiest-fi LPs. The various solo artists set a high standard; the only guest to the country, of course, was Lance Dossor, who gave us a spirited reading of the Rachmaninoff Concerto in C Minor. He was much at home with it, and the orchestra blended well to make most pleasant listening, which in the second movement became really beautiful. (By the by, his Bach Partita in B Flat, on YC link recently, was well-nigh perfect; the versatility of the man is no _ publicity stunt.) Maurice Till, on the other hand; seemed less than happy in the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, though he and the Orchestra

let their hair well down to produce a memorable version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The Orchestra on their own played the two Fateful Fifths, Beethoven’s and Tchaikovski’s. The latter was a bit soupy-duck soup, at that-after its nature; the former was fine, a "different" interpretation from that usually given it, with a more measured tread to the first movement and a smooth swinging gait to the second. I was glad to notice that a local guest conductor (Hans Colombi, of the 3YA Studio Orchestra) was given his chance, and that he took it, too; I hope this is only the beginéing of such talent displays. I picked up an odd little programme the other day, an illustrated talk, The Birth of Music (Unesco programme), an unpretentious piece replete with varjous wailing sounds from different parts of the world-primitivé’ types of folk music for the most part. Unearthly, but interesting. More civilised but no less interesting are the current programmes from Radio Nederland, featuring their national composers and _ orchestras. Latest gems on the list are, a Concerto Grosso by Hellendaal, savouring strongly of Corelli, and the Symphony No. 3 by Badings, a modern with the norm of dissonance of a Dutch Vaughan Williams. I think I will soon have to make a plea for an international scale of dissonance; I suggest that it be calibrated in microbergs.