Music from Europe

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 31

Music from Europe

T this stage of the year listeners may we!l be forgiven for. gasping when they learn that yet another Festival of music-the Holland Festival of 1955-is soon to take the air. The. organisers of the Festival in their opening programme take pains, however, to justify themselves-for instance, the Festival does not include "rarely heard" works which are not worth hearing. The first of the series, "Sounds of Holland," is an interesting panorama of sound. Deceptively, it starts with a barrel organ, of the kind that can be heard all over Holland, especially along the street

canals. From here it is quite a leap to the music of some of Holland’s 10 symphony orchestras. Holland is also especially noted for its choirs, and has more separate performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion than any other country. It has a great deal of music making in its schools, and, like New Zealand, hundreds of brass bands. The last sound is that of a ship’s siren-an unmusical sound, but a meaningful one to Dutch ears, for whom the. sounds of the sea and the sounds of ships are part of their destiny. This programme will also include excerpts from "Daphnis and Chloe," by Ravel (YCs, Saturday, October 20, 9.30 p.m.). Next week’s programme includes works by the modern Dutch composers Diepenbrock, and Badinge, the English Opera Group, and members of La Scala, Milan. Following on the Holland Festival programmes in this general series of overseas programmes will be two programmes by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a programme by the Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra. The latter will include David Oistrakh (above) playing Kabalevsky’s Concerto in C Major. These recordings have been made available to the NZBS through the courtesy of the legations of the countries concerned.