The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 27

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

\WeE appear to have been smitten with a. sudden desire to celebrate important composers with feature _ programmes of their own, and ‘if their works are commonly neglected, so much the better; masterpieces are exhumed for our benefit, and then interred once more. Honour has at least been satisfied. This may account for the Blisskrieg of the past week, when much of Bliss’s major work has been heard, some of it refreshingly unfamiliar, some resurrected for no obvious reason. The Festival Overture "Edinburgh" contained fine music, occasionally trite, but always striking, and its inclusion of familiar themes made a first hearing easier without detracting from the originality of treatment. To judge from this and the Violin Concerto which followed (BBC), the composer has mellowed towards a more traditional vein of expression than much of his earlier stringent utterance. Needless to say, the performance, conducted by the composer and with Campoli as soloist, could hardly have been bettered. Our own contribution to this life of Bliss comprised chiefly a programme (NZBS) of shorter works, of varying styles as befits an arranged recital, and performed chiefly by National Orchestra membets. The Clarinet Quintet, with Frank Gurr in the title role, was most

satisfactorily smooth, and ingratiating as far as such music can be. So was the Viola Sonata, with Glynne Adams and James Robertson; in fact, the whole series was well conceived and executed. The lyric tenor, to my mind, is one stage above the operatic tenor as far as artistry goes, but frequently a stage lower technically speaking. I heard the Australian: tenor William Herbert (YC links) putting Schubert’s Maid through the Mill, and though his high register was very pleasing, the deeper passages seemed to evoke an _ uncomfortable wobble. Perhaps it was only emotion, but it spoilt an otherwise tasteful rendering of this demanding cycle. The Alex Lindsay Orchestra started their new séries of programmes (NZBS) featuring the Coricerti Grossi of Corelli, with great élan, and the warm tone that we now expect of them as a matter of course: it remains only to be seen whether the series is as successful as their earlier one of Handel. As before, each programme includes a modern work, the first being Alan Bush’s cycle Farewell Earth’s Bliss, whose music belies its rather depressive title. The soloist was Donald Munro, who sang his difficult part feelingly and as far as I could judge, accurately. If the other works to follow are as attractive, then it would be a shame to miss any of the programmes.