The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 820, 15 April 1955, Page 10

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

ECENT programmes seem to group themselves naturally into sectionsthe singers, the chamber players and the orchestras, all of New Zealand production. The baritone Richard Collett (late of South Pacific) is showing his more tasteful side in a series of varied recitals (NZBS), featuring different composers or nations. He was probably at his best in a group of songs by Richard Strauss, whose music was nat too ¢mooth for the voice, as in a later bracket of French songs, nor yet too wilfully passionate, as in a programme of Schumann songs which tempted the singer into sharp intonation. Of a different type are the NZBS programmes by the contralto Christina Young, whose voice is rich though by no means fruity, with some tendency to the "sempiternal wobble" described by Tovey. One particular programme was excellent listening-that of five old Italian songs, including Pergolesi, Scarlatti and others of their genre. I noted also a bracket of songs from Thomas E. West in the New Zealand Singers’ series (NZBS), in which his true tenor was most beautifully produced, and well recorded, too. if it was a recording. The Quilter setting of "O Mistress Mine" I could have heard again with pleasure-Mr. West rarely disappoints. I have not been disappointed either in the sonata recitals (3YC) by the

‘cellist Frances Anderson, with Jennifer Barnard (whom I have mentioned in these columns) as accompanist. The *cello sang most sweetly in a little sonata in G by Marcello, the 17th Century Italian, in a demure 17th Century manner; and later became by turns nostalgic for a Grieg sonata, and thunderous but no less sweet in the G Minor work of Beethoven. In all these there were the nice balance with the piano and the unanimity that. come with true chamber playing, neither player seeking too much self-expression. In all, a very pleasant series, The National Orchestra appears to be taking no holiday during its inter-series periods, though comparatively fixed in the capital, One concert conducted by W. H. Walden-Mills (2YC) featured Haydn’s little-played Symphony in C, No. 97, which I think should be on more programmes, for its very buoyancy if nothing else in these depressing times. There was also some lovely singing by the soprano Merle Gamble. Another programme contained that old war-horse the Jupiter Symphony; this is a complete contrast to the three little Salzburg Symphonies recently heard from the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra (NZBS). The latter show us the Mozart of the sonatas, rather than of the great concertos and later symphonies: quelle délicatesse! Mais ce n’est pas la guérre,