The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 823, 6 May 1955, Page 11

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

"T HE post-Easter doldrums have been avoided chiefly by the efforts of the Pascal Quartet, the French ensemble recently "imported" by the New Zealand Federation of Chamber Music Societies. This is one of the finest combinations of its type in the world, and its members have played together for over a dozen years-quite enough time to allow the development of that oneness of thought which is the prerequisite of chamber playing. Besides a wide selection of quartets from. the early romantics to the late moderns, they are also in the process of presenting the whole 16 Beethoven quartets in New Zealand-a monumental feat. In the first of these programmes (YC link) three of the quartets were heard, gne from each period of Beethoven's creative life. The early work (No. 2) was a refreshing opening, though dwarfed by the others the first Rasoumovsky and the great Opus 95. In the latter, in particular, the incisive interpretation, the pure tone of the individual instruments and. their unanimity of feeling combined to produce a work of true art. In an earlier programme the same Quartet played the Honegger Quartet No. 2, a new work to most New Zealanders, and not an easy one to absorb at a hearing. Its style I might call con-

tratonal-implying polytonal counter-point-but not too dissonant for any but conservative ears. The Pascal. Quartet gave it a strenuous and convincing read-ing-one which I hope will be available on record before long. Joyce Burrell is a well-known pianist in Christchurch circles, and she gives characteristically competent recitals: het last programme (3YC) was marred only by the fact that the Mozart sonata she chose — K.331 -had been so recently lampooned by Anha Russell. If one could forget the anti-climactic association, then it was a@ very pleasing performance, with the accuracy and delicacy demanded by all Mozart, and especially so in a familiar piece such as this. One of the most illuminating programmes I have heard lately was that by Owen Jensen, discussing the Grieg Piano Concerto with well-timed illustra-tions-not a discussion by a great expert for other great experts, but for the people who will hear it in live performance. If we are to have "appreciation" programmes, preferably with an immediate end in view. this is the best form they could take, with each point made clearly and neatly by the music itself. Presented in this light, even a rather worn diamond like the Grieg Concerto can reveal new and entrancing facets.