MUSIC FOR CHILDREN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 17

MUSIC FOR CHILDREN

1EXT week the Orchestra leaves for a jaunt in the country with concerts at Hamilton, New Plymouth, Wanganui and Palmerston North. In the first three places the Orchestra will give special concerts for schools (1XH, March 28; 2XP, March 30; 2XA, April 1). These are some of the most important programmes in the Orchestra’s schedule; and some of the most difficult, too, both to arrange and to present. ; When a conductor arranges a programme he almost certainly has his audience in mind; but if, in some way or other, his choice should misfire, he would be extremely unlueky if his music did not hit some other mark, Programmes for schools have one aim onlychildren, mostly of the teen-age group. Children, the most selective and the most critical of audiences, they know what they want or, at least, they know when they get it, and then they can be the most generous with their atttention, But you daren’t misfire, Sometimes in the past, one has a suspicion that schools’ programmes were not all they might be. The fault, too often, was one of playing down to the audience rather than going over their heads. Mr. Robertson seems to have given much thought to his first school programme. On paper it looks quite a thrill. There is colour, rhythm, excitement, music for the imagination, and one short piecethe first movement from Beethoven’s

Symphony No. 8 in F-to make the audience sit up and think as well as feel. Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra will be known already to some of the children. Those fortunate enough to be at the concerts will see what the instruments look like as well as being able to learn what sort of sound they make, And the audiences at Hamilton, New Plymouth and Wanganui are being honoured, too, with what is probably a first performance in New Zealand, a fantasia for piano and orchestra by SaintSaens. He called it Africa. Knowing Saint-Saens, I imagine you won't hear the rattle of native drums or anything like that in it, but it’s likely to be filled up to the brim with effective piano writing. With Cara Hall as pianist, one should get a very good idea of how well the piano sounds with the orchestra. Then there is Wagner’s overture to The Flying Dutchman, some of his most vivid music. It is the picture of the Flying Dutehman’s terrible ship scudding before the storm, doomed to sail on forever, Sullen seas, lightning, the merry songs of happy sailors in a passing ship; it would be an unlively imagination that could not be inspired by this exciting music. And to end this school programme there are the popular Polovtsian Dances from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. Yes, I think all this music should go down well with the children up north, and with James Robertson to introduce the programme, this should be a landmark in musical enjoyment. |

Owen

Jensen