The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 818, 1 April 1955, Page 10

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

AY I wish a very happy birthday to the Schola Cantorum and its conductor? To celebrate it they performed (YC link) a rather mixed bag of their own favourite pieces, with selections from larger works; and though on paper it seemed a heterogeneous programme, in effect it coalesced magically to produce a most satisfying result. The common factor responsible was the vein of mysticism running through-a delightful Grace by Whythorne followed immediately by Vaughan Williams’s Flos Campi gave a lively contrast of similar methods in quite different styles. The latter was the crux of the programme, producing some brilliant choral work, and some first-rate playing from the National Orchestra, whose members were providing the accompaniment, and especially the viola solo played by Winifred Stiles. The difficulty of the music served only to inspire the singers to their best efforts. The Libera me, from Fauré’s Requiem (another mystical work), was exciting as always, especially at the Dies Irae; though the great unison tune seemed strangely uneven in volume -perhaps an unwise exaggeration of a legitimate effect. Among piano recitals lately, we have heard Doris Sheppard (2YC) playing rarely-heard sonatas by Sir Arnold Bax. Time will tell whether these works are doomed to the oblivion of publishers’ files, with perhaps an occasional exhumation; for myself, though Bax may produce his strangest and most wonderful

chords, their novelty doesn’t last, and though I enjoyed the sonatas, not to mention their playing and interpretation, I can hardly put them high on my Hit Parade list. The same might apply to many pieces in the series "Can the Piano Sing?" currently heard from the YA stations. These are all interesting, often masterly, with not-too-long spoken introductions and academically perfect playing by Olive Bloom; but the fact remains that they are Examination Pieces (the capitals should be audible), and this fact must cast a cloud over their enjoyment by the very people who should most enjoy them-the hundreds of candidates for the 1955 exams. Still, they now have a standardised, concrete example before them, and for the objective listener, an answer to the series title. Mr. W. J. Walden-Mills is a musician of great capability, and has a flair for putting life into a performance; the studio concert in which he conducted the National Orchestra (YC link) was no exception. The well-worn Adagio: for Strings of Samuel Barber was given a beautiful new ending, while Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony rollicked along with no hindrance to its fine careless rapture. The wind sections were on their best behaviour, with a notable lack of "fluffing." It seems that a little new blood as regards the conductors is doing our Orchestra all the good a transfusion should.