The Week’s Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 925, 3 May 1957, Page 20

The Week’s Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

: ACOUSTICS, pronounce them how : you will, are most important to the concertgoer, who is especially concerned whether the sounds are conveyed adequately to the gallery, or to those awkward corners at the back. For radio, the problem is dcifferent because the audience is present by proxy, by courtesy of the microphone as it were, so that the placing of the microphones themselves is far more important than any vagaries of resonance in the hall. By monitoring, prominence may be given to yarious sections of players, and a balance secured which may not even be obtainable in the live performance. This may sound fairly obvious, but when one considers the National Orchestra which plays in halls good and bad throughout the country, one might otherwise be surprised that their broadcasts are of such even quality; often only the timbre of the applause will give the clue as to the type of locale. In the inaugural concert (YC link) in the new hall at Lower Hutt, for example, there were several passages where every part seemed to sing through clearly, in an almost disembodied way; there were other sections where perhaps a soloist was overweighted by the instrumental masses,

or an important wind part was not heard. Yet these apparent features and faults may have been mere broadcasting foibles, and quite unnoticed by the audience present. Works can be made or marred by the. technicians these days, and it is a tribute to their skill that the music is so often composed and not decomposed in the course of transmission. It is a new and artificial medium, so that I can’t comment on the quality of the hall from a_ broadcast, but only on the playing, This programme was a popular one, ranging from the mild flirtatiousness of the Magic Flute overture through the power of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to the overwhelming thunders of the 1812 Overture, replete with brass bands. This is a work of which we have heard a good deal lately, possibly because it gives everyone a chance to blow, bang or scrape their loudest, and so relieves orchestral inhibitions. In any case, this performance was no_ exception. I imagine that if the new hall is going to be reserved chiefly for popular pieces, there will be more criticism of music played there; the better a piece is known, the more easily deficiencies in its performance will be noticed.