The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 22

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

T’S nice to know that Schumann is considered worthy of rememberingeven if he has been dead for only a century. One gathers that there are people who actually approve of his | music. Of course, he doesn’t carry the | kudos or approach the genius of Mozart: in fact, if he hadn’t married and died in such romantic circumstances, one doubts whether he would be quite as well known. All the same, it was good to see a day set for the honouring of Schumann’s work. Not necessarily the best, or the best known, but still warranted genuine Schumann. The National Orchestra (NZBS) opened the festivities with his "Cenoveva" Overture, not commonly heard, but fresh and colourful. So also was the "Spring" Symphony, whose occasional descents toward banality can never ruin its bright open-air atmosphere. The orchestral cohesion was at fault only now and then, and. the delightful thythms were well emphasised. David Galbraith made a good fist of the Concert Introduction and Allegro, though the work itself I find hardly inspiring: it seems to have started very much like. the Piano Concerto, but to have forgotten to take to itself any more movements, with an incomplete sound that even good playing could barely offset.

A little later we were able to hear Deésirée MacEwan, the visiting English pianist, playing the Fantasiestucke, Op. 12, with an attractive precision and grace. Thi was her first recital in this country, and augurs well for future ones. Schumann, always the pianist himself, requires firmness of handling combined with a lighthearted approach-not an easy balance to achieve, but Miss MacEwan certainly had the right idea. Donald Munro sang a selection of the short songs in clear and quite convincing German: I think his voice is probably best suited to this type of work, with its light tone and flexibility. Lastly in this programme a group of strings led by Alex Lindsay played the Quartet in A Minor, a piece which sounds as though it would fit more comfortably on a piano if anything. The playing was not bad, but I found the music somewhat tedious: interesting, I admitSchumann was always musicianly-but with a drawn-out air of having strayed into the wrong company. As a tailpiece, I heard Maurice Till (4YC) give a very good account of the Etudes Symphoniques, And there we are. Schumann can now turn back in his grave and rest peacefully for another century.