The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 900, 2 November 1956, Page 18

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

-IRST judgment on a new work must always be a tentative one, since further hearings may modify a first criticism so much as almost to reverse it. Thus I made mental resolves to tread Agag-like when Vaughan Williams’s new Violin Sonata was broadcast on his birthday: but the resolves were scarcely necessary because the music never exceeds the composer, though it does strike out in new paths, and no critical strangleholds would be applied, even if they had been justified. The Sonata was played (YC link) by Francis Rosner and Frederick Page; it was nominally in A Minor-the composer still gives keys to his works-but soon the shift of the scales and modes interrupted any key-feeling, as usual. I expected a rather crude piano part, for Vaughan Williams is notorious for his handling of the instrument, but was delighted to find that though distinctly lumpy, there was nothing of the yokel about it, and its rather thick texture was in keeping with the composer’s more recent orchéstral works. The violin work was pure joy, especially. in the last movement (a theme and variations), where it lapsed into those long speaking melismas of mystical and dreamy sound that, more than any music I know since Palestrina, give one that "way up in the midde of the air" feeling. Most remark-

able movement was the Scherzo, which in its style seemed quite new, while in its haste one might discern a promise of repentance at leisure. This is one work that we should be allowed to hear again fairly soon, before memory wreaks its usual havoc with impressions, With the National Orchestra the violinist Malcolm Latchem played Prokofieff’s Concerto in G, and a very suave performance it was, too. Prokofieff’s melodies are nothing if not ingratiating, and there was nothing here to grate on the contemporary ear, for the melodies form the basis of this concerto, its stimulating rhythms being exciting but secondary, At times the solcist was a little subdued by the weight of the orchestra behind him, but usually held undisputed sway with a fine ringing tone that brought the tunes to the fore. I’ve heard some ear-jarring caden-zas-the Tchaikovski concerto leaps to mind--and was happy to find nothing offensive in this, In the same programme (YC link) there was included an overture, "At the Tabard Inn," originally written for his Canterbury Tales choral piece, by George Dyson. This was disappointing, having neither body nor saying melody, but being fairly consistently mediocre. Still, it ensured that the other works would not be anticlimactic.