DISCOVERING NEW CONDUCTORS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 7

DISCOVERING NEW CONDUCTORS

An English experiment-and a young New Zealander’s success,

by

ARTHUR

JACOBS

BOURNEMOUTH, on England’s south coast, is an all-the-year-round seaside resort-but the twelve young musicians who recently converged on it came without thought of holidaying. They had been selected from 39 applicants for a chance to prove themselves as orchestral conductors. Among the twelve were two representatives of the Commonwealth, both from New Zealand: Robert Philpot (33), originally from Auckland, but trained mainly in Dunedin, and Peter Zwartz (25), born in Nelson and trained in Christchurch. For four days .the twelve were let loose on the 65-strong Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, which is England’s only full professional orchestra outside London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. They worked under the guidance of the orchestra’s regular conductor, Charles Groves. They rehearsed Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovski, Malcolm Arnold and Elgar. Additionally they had conferences with members of the orchestra. They were also lectured by Sir Adrian Boult ("Only a white enamelled baton will do"), and by the Master of the Queen’s Musick, Sir Arthur Bliss. Sir Arthur’s voice sometimes rose in quiet excitement to a squeak as he talked: "We are an inhibited nation. We suffer from the feeling that ‘it’s not done.’ But for a conductor, everything is ‘done.’ He’s swimming in Beethoven!" Of the twelve, the three whom Charles Groves adjudged the best shared the conducting of the orchestra’s public symphony concert that week. But how should you appraise a budding conductor? Not merely by academic correctness of the beat. That would be to fly in the face of experience. Superficially, nothing could be more baffling or arbitrary than the gestures of a Furtwangler or a Beecham. Yet what magic those gestures have wrought! So Robert Philpot found himself chosen among the victorious three, despite a defiantly unconventional air on the rostrum. He would sometimes flex his legs, sometimes wag a left forefinger like an extra baton. But he established a swift and lively communication with the players. As a conductor he is, in a word, a "natural." —

At the concert he was allotted the evening’s most difficult works, Elgar’s "Cockaigne" overture and Beethoven’s Second Symphony. Given more experi-ence-which would have prescribed a slower tempo for SBeethoven’s first allegro-Philpot is likely to astonish. I agreed with Mr Groves also in his choice of Rhoslyn Davies for the concert. Davies--a Welshman with Italian. training-has a smoother and more .elegant technique than Philpot, and plenty of ideas behind the baton. On Mr Groves’s third choice I disagreed. Instead of Peter Godfrey (a music teacher at one of England’s "pub-

lic schools," Marlborough College), | should have selected Myer Fredman. who coaches at London’s privately-run Opera School. Peter Zwartz, who has shown London his ability recently in conducting a stucent string orchestra, was one of the youngest members of the course at Bournemouth-and not the least distinguished. He, like the others, will have gained enormously from this training. Indeed, the facilities offered at Bourne-

mouth showed up the apparent inadequacies in the training of conductors at our London schools of music-to which musically ambitious New Zealanders still flock. Robert Philpot left the Royal College of Music because "I was wasting my time. I was only allowed to conduct the orchestra about once a term." Peter Zwartz is still a student at the rival institution, the Royal Academy of Music. There, he tells me, he has a chance to conduct an orchestra only for about a quarter of an hour every fortnight. Yet conducting is his main study! Whether conductors can get adequate training in Britain is no mere academic question here. It may shed light on a matter which continues to agitate British music-lovers-the increasing appointment of foreign-born conductors to leading British posts. Not merely, as readers of The New Zealand Listener know, has Rudolf Schwarz won the position of chief concuctor to the BBC. His successor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is to be Andrzej Panufnik, a recent refugee from Poland. The Scottish National Orchestra, from which the Austrian-born Karl Rank! has resigned, has invited Hans Swarowsky, of Austria, to take his place. It would be not merely intolerant but wilfully short-sighted to prevent foreignborn musicians from enriching . the British musical scene. (To take only two examples, the Halle Orchestra, of Manchester, and the Bach Choir, of London, were both founded by "foreigners’’.) Yet, as British conductors see one plum after another fall from their grasp, they are understandably demanding, "What have they got that we haven’t?" The answer is, in one rather surprising word, opera houses. In Germany, Austria, and Italy (and to some extent | elsewhere), a multiplicity of opera houses provides a training ground for young concuctors. There the youngsters ect as coaches, assistants, chorus-masters and general musical handy-men, eventually graduating to the conducting of performances. In Germany no self-respect-ing town is without its resident opera company. In England we have no such resident companies outside London. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, not content with its conductors’ course, would like to take a further step. It would like to engage a young conductor for a few months each year as general assistant-thus providing a kind of substitute for training in the operahouses that Britain lacks, But the orchestra’s management will not be able to do this unless its State subsidy (paid through the Arts Council of Great Britain) is increased. I wish I could say that was likely. Meanwhile, at any rate, Robert Philpot, of New Zealand, and Rbhoslyn Davies, of the Rhondda Valley, have . faced the audience at Bournemouth’s Winter Gardens and have proved their capability for more. Will British impresarios and British committees, so ready to be impressed with foreign names and foreign languages, give them the chances they deserve?