And the Kitchen Sink

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 923, 18 April 1957, Page 24

And the Kitchen Sink

ECAUSE Western music is so complex, difficult, and serious, musical parody, as they say in America, is a sure-fire draw. :The spectacle of someone engaged in high devotions, but serving ends of the utmost trivialityNis, 4f done with sufficient comic flair, irresTSt= ible. But I maintain that it is a spectacle and the ceremony of the performance must be seen, and weighed, for comic effect, with what is happening. Therefore I did not find the Hoff-

nung Music Festival (YC link) continuously hilarious simply because one could not see the weird instruments, nor observe the calculated pomposities of the performers. There were choice things in it, though, which are treasurable; | Malcolm Arnold’s Overture, for ex-| ample, which cast wicked glances at) Stravinsky and Khachaturian, and the_ soupiest film music, making wonderful play with a deliciously irrelevant flute, and taking am unconscionable time to end. The Reizenstein piano concerto, claiming to end them all, began with the portentous Grieg, and the brilliant | clever cadenza succeeded in being at once*the Grieg and "Roll Out the Barrell," and this, I must say, was unalloyed delight. But the audience, often mad with joy at things one could only surmise, was an irritation, and I say again, that such things must be seen.

B.E.G.

M.