The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 874, 4 May 1956, Page 20

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

']T’S very easy to get behindhand and "out of date with recitals, since new ones are continually being thrust upon us, while the old ones, and various recorded series, are still being heard from other stations for a year or so. A case in point, and one I would hate to have missed myself, is the series of organ recitals by C. Foster Browne (NZBS), in which he devotes each programme to composers of one nationality-a very equitable arrangement, in which ancient and modern are freely mixed. The last I heard contained six Preludes and Intermezzi by the comparatively modern Hermann Schroeder; I say comparatively, because the departures from 19th century idiom are very gentle, as is the emotional content. The organ playing is excellent, with nicely-judged changes of registration and a light touch with the pedals, while the recording is not at all bad. Richard Farrell ranks as one of New Zealand’s illustrious sons, and to keep in touch with his origins he makes frequent visits, employing his talents for the public pleasure during his stay. On his present tour, he has started well by giving a number of broadcast recitals (YC link) of very diverse nature. Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini in one programme, and three

Intermezzi in another, showed the pianist at his most brilliant and most sensitive, using power and pleading to the greatest effect. Where the Variations cemanded technique, the technique was there ready for them; only a first-rate pianist can add feeling to these demands, and the feeling was duly added, I remember saying something similar about Irene Kohler’s playing of this work, but I would not care to differentiate the two performances. Particularly delightful was one of the first works Richard Farrell broadcast, Mozart's naive little variations on the nursery tune "Ah Vous _ Dirai-je Maman," a piece of perfection in miniature, and not lacking in Mozartean glitter. The only way to play it is simply and directly, and this he did, still seeking out its reserves of expression and using them with a nice o crimination. This, of course, is the Mozart bicentennial year, and is being celebrated as such in most countries. As far as the NZBS are concerned, the celebration takes the form of a series of recorded programmes containing all types of his music. Owen Jensen compéres the programmes in his urbanely personal way, shedding illumination. on Mozart's already luminous work,