The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 21

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

AS in last week’s listening, the Prom. Concefts (YC links) have provided most of our local diet, with a varied menu, Handel cheek by jowl with SaintSaens and similar contrasts dotted all over the programmes. Variety is the key, with good performance dominant and serious music in a relatively minor position. The soloists are. drawn from the best of New Zealand talent; while the conductor is obviously a man of musicianship, and has a definite conducting personality. I would not go so far as to say that he projects himself in all the Orchestra’s playing, but his interpretations have an air of purposeful exaggeration, sometimes of waywardness, without any sense of falseness or of misconstruing the composer. Now and again an unconventional speed in a’ hackneyed work is as refreshing as a cold plunge-though it can be just as much of a shock, too. The soloists, as I implied, are good. Maurice Till gave a very satisfying account of Beethoven’s second Piano Concerto, with crystal clarity and a feeling for climax that a playwright might envy. This is not generally thought of as a dramatic work, but between conductor and soloist, that

_ was its effect, as pleasing as it was unexpected; and the final movement, treated as comedy rather than as farce, convinced me more than some of the recorded performances. Even more than this concerto, that by Grieg has to bear comparison with versions on record, usually by the more popular pianists. David Galbraith gave it a more thoughtful reading than one often hears, with meticulous attention to detail, especially in the first movement, which more than made up for an occasional orchestral dislocation. The finale also impressed, with a nice balance of power and discretion. I don’t know why it is, but whenever an orchestra essays a work of Mozart, it seems to be the signal for the woodwind section to untune themselves, concertedly and in different directions. I have noticed it without comment on many occasions, not only locally but in recorded works, and the Mozart symphony that is without a wind-borne blemish is quite a rare event. This season the Haffner Symphony suffered in this respect-fortunately in no other. Possibly conductors become inured to the phenomenon, or more probably the unprotected audiences cannot complain.