The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 20

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

{t strikes me that Bach always gets a fair deal from the broadcasting and recording authorities, even more now that there are so many major works available on record.. The whole thing has snowballed rapidly; of course, he wrote an immense quantity of music, but at the risk of being accused of sacrilege, I don’t think it was all worthy of perpetuation. After all, he was writing for performance, not posterity; and some of the customs of the time demanded prolix works which today might prove tedious to all but the most rabid enthusiasts. Be that as it may, no one can find fault with the Brandenburg Concertos, written with an art which allows us to admire their technique or to bask in their sunny moods, as we please. They open the series of programmes (NZBS link) of Bach’s music, with Owen Jensen mellifluously introducing them. His scripts are good-tempered and almost gossipy, interspersing remarks on the music with titbits about Bach the man, without too much digression from the matter in hand. Perhaps a little more material. on the cantatas would have been acceptable, since most of the music hangs so closely on the words, and only the minority of listeners would be able to translate at a hearing.

The Brandenburg Concertos were performed by the National Orchestra with James Robertson conducting, and a great variety of soloists, as these pieces demand; advantage was taken of the presence of Dr Thornton Lofthouse last year to enlist his services as continuo harpsichord player, which aided the effect considerably. Even more authenticity could have been obtained- if this was the object in view-by substituting recorders for the flutes tsed. Otherwise I can register no academic objections to the performances, apart from a fiurried movement here and there, and a marked predilection for the sudden slowing or "hydraulic brake" effect at the end of a movemént. Perhaps this is personal bias and is somewhat controversial, but I think the sound is ugly and impairs the vitality of the music that has gone before. Ken Smith’s wonderful trumpet playing, which I have mentioned before, did much to make the second Concerto memorable, the others that I have heard being workmanlike but not especially distinguished. In all, I gained the impression that these programmes are designed for those who like Bach already, rather than to gain converts; which being so, we can afford to be critical of performance.