The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 936, 19 July 1957, Page 8

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

WHEN. an idealist in music composes, he aims at but does not necessarily attain his ideals, and if he perseveres, may live to become impatient with his own music, since such ideals are hardly reached. Even then, his goal may not ‘tbe common to all, and so his music may be unacceptable to some audiences. George Dyson had no illusions on this score; his ideals lay in art as an inspiration to the fellowship in Man, and the theme of fellowship lies happily at the root of The Canterbury Pilgrims, his best-known and perhaps _bestwrought work, in which he portrays the pilgrims as musical characters, diverse yet knit by common purpose. As Dyson says, he does not claim to be markedly original, but writes "everyday music," which he omits to say is often markedly derivative as well. This work was performed (YC link), I think for the second time locally in the past few years, with the National Orchestra; the Phoenix Choir were the singers, and contrived to make even their most unconvincing numbers sound feasible and natural. Portraits such as the Clerk, who represents bere a feat of vocal control, did not-die the unnatural death that they meet at the hands of most choirs, while the hearty

Merchant brought their full force to bear stunningly. Sybil Phillipps made an agile Wife of Bath; Donald Munro sounded more than usually competent, and Richard Lewis graced the difficult tenor solos. With such talent, even the words failed to meke their poor impression ("modernised" from Chaucer by distortion rather than by paraphrase). The best thing in the performance was undoubtedly the closing passage, which Cied away into an ancient distance as realistically — and companionably — as one could wish. Even Dyson’s ideals would be satisfied. I should like to toss a bouquet to the 3YC programme organisers; out of the YC stations, they seem to have most urge towards interesting programmes. Instead of the usual Bach-followed-by-Verdi-followed-by-Bartok, they try to bind an evening together, giving generous portions of style or atmosphere rather than mere snippets. For instance, a talk on primitive magic was surrounded by musical works based on folk lore: and this: was the only station with a programme of American music on Tuly 4. Naturally, some of this work is a little naive so far; but bringing such imagination to the task. there is no reason why stations should not produce integrated entertainment.