The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 871, 13 April 1956, Page 31

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

ii HEN Easter appears, we can confidently expect appropriate music, bolstered by a recorded Passion or two and perhaps a live performance, if any local societies can manage it so soon after the Christmas holidays. This year the Royal Christchurch Musical Society distinguished itself by beating the dleadline and singing (3YC) Bach’s St. Matthew Passion-more credit to them still, since no one can deny that it is taxing music for all concerned. In particular, it is super-taxing for the muchpitied tenor who agrees (or is persuaded) to sing the Evangelist, which means negotiating treacherous rapids and rocks of. recitative continually throughout the performance. Maurice Newman must have drawn the shortest straw, but he did well and hardly had to bail out his musical boat at all. Lapses of intonation there were, quite obviously at times, but they were by no means confined to one soloist; and in any case, if you listen to German recordings of Bach, you will find that their soloists are none too particular about the right note as long as the musical sense and the meaning are intact: but there was no doubt about the integrity of this singing.

at Mary Pratt was richly reliable as ever in her arias, while Marjorie Rowley in the soprano solos proved to have a sweet, not-over-penetrating voice; the two basses, whose identities my ear did_ not resolve, were more than adequate. Mr. Field-Dodgson had trained his choir well, and their tone and especially definition of line and variation of colour were evidently the fruits of hard work: the venom of the multitude, contrasted with serenity in the chorales, was most effective. One point here-need the chorales have been taken all at the same slow speed, with a long hiatus between each pair of lines? I don’t think either style or words imply such flatly consistent treatment. This is mere cheeseparing, of course, and apart from a rather weak orchestra I wouldn’t criticise the performance too destructively. At least it’s streets ahead of sitting through yet another Stainer’s Crucifixion. Gerald Knight, director of the Royal School of Church Music, gave a surprisingly uninspiring recital of organ music (NZBS), which included a pedestrian and heavily Victorian fugue by Parrynot one of his brighter moments. A Bach Trio was so softly registered as to sound thin and baseless, which it certainly shouldn't be. The playing’ was meticulous,