Requiem

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 917, 8 March 1957, Page 15

Requiem

‘THE memorial programme arranged by the NZBS for Toscanini was handsome in time, two full hours, and deeply impressive in form and content. John Gray provided a commentary distinguished for its knowledge and good taste, and he was able to draw illuminatingly from his own experience of hearing Toscanini conduct four concerts at La Scala in 1946. The programme ranged from the Overture to the Barber of Seville, a top recording of 1928, but uncomfortable now with its buzz and roar, to a Brahms Symphony in the thirties, passages from Wagner, a recording of the last act of Rigoletto at Madison Square Garden, magnificent, this; and the Scherzo to the Beethoven Ninth, performed with prodigious energy, so that the music fairly crackled and glittered. As Mr. Gray observed, the imperial, star conductor is a modern phenomenon, comparable, though not quite contemporary with, the star producer in the theatre: is this dominance

excessive? In the theatre, I think it is, but on the concert stage, where the performance of an intricate work by a hundred men is one of the most complex of all human activities, I am inclined to accept the need for absolute monarchy. Insecticide TEN for enterprise to the NZBS for producing Samuel Spewack’s

insect fantasy, Under. the Sycamore Tree, which, in intention at least, is several cuts above many plays we have recently heard in ZB Sunday Showcase. The opening was sufficiently bizarre to rely. on my undivided attention. Rattle, rattle, rattle ding! Rattle, rattle, rattle ding! More of this, and then a suave voice announced "Your Majesty has laid three hundred eggs today." And there we were in the insect world, which is undergoing a technological revolution with various techniques which they have picked up by brushing against the tricks of humans. From technology, the chief scientist moves on to the emotional field: he wants to bring sympathy and love to his world. The passage where he rehearses two zombies in love was the funniest in the play. Thudding out like coins into mud, came the ritual endearments: "Precious. Darling. I like you. I like you, too.’ And when love catches on, it sweeps through the insect world; internecine war is abandoned, and the next stage is to acquaint humanity with their discovery. But the enterprise fails: humanity will not listen, nor credit that wisdom could come from such a lowly source. An excellent idea, but far too diffusely worked out in this play. One act is quite enough for insects.

B.E.G.

M.