Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 939, 9 August 1957, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

GRANDMA PLAYED FOR BRAHMS

F you want proof that concert artists can survive the pressure of the modern world tour, with its compressed schedules

and_ kaleidoscopic _ @udiences, and yet remain natural and

pleasantly shy, you should meet the cellist Guy Fallot and his pianist sister, Monique, who &are touring New Zealand for the NZBS and

the Federation of Chamber Music Societies. When we suggested to them that it was unusual for a cellist and a pianist to play as a team, they agreed that it was, and Monique, who speaks English rather more fluently than her brother, explained: "There is only one other such professional team apart from us in France." There was never any decision on their part to choose these instruments-when Monique was five and Guy six the decision was made for them. Both instruments had, however, a long history in their family. A pianist grandmother played once for Brahms when she was a child, and both grandfathers played the cello-in fact, it is one of their instruments that Guy Fallot has brought to New Zealand with him. So music to them, as Monique put it, "comes naturally from childhood." Before the last war it was the habit of the family to holiday with their grandparents in Switzerland, and that’s where they were when France went to war in 1939. Unable to return home, they stayed in Switzerland and continued their studies. Living in the country some

way out of Lausanne, their mornings and music practice began at 5.30, then came school, and the day finished with study at Lausanne Conservatoire. In 1945 they returned to France for further study.

Had they heard overseas of the popularity of chamber music in New Zealand? Yes, they said, many Australians had mentioned that here they would find: a large and appreciative audience. In Europe, said Guy Fallot, chamber music was very popular. Germany had perhaps the largest audience, but Holland, Switzetland and France were not far behind. In France the Jeunesse Musicale organisation was steadily increasing the number of youthful listeners. Monique explained that this organisation was formed at the end of the war. With lectures and illustrations it aimed to teach the art of music listening to anyone under 30.. At present it has 500,000 members __between 12 and 30.

To a question about their special preferences in music, Guy Fallot replied

with an expressive shrug and the comment that they liked to play everything: "When we are playing Brahms," added his sister, "we think that he is wonderful. But the same is true>with Debussy, Fauré and with everyone else we play." Both prefer a live audience to the anonymous audience of a studio recital. As Monique put it: "A microphone is so very cold-without a soul» We can best give something if the audience gives something — an exchange that is very valuable." Music isn’t the only interest that Guy and Monique Fallot share, for both like to get away from cities and crowds in their spare time. Monique goes to the country on foot or by bicycle, and Guy has a. 20-footer, cabin model yacht which he sails on the Lake of Genevaor Lac Leman, as the citizens of Lausanne prefer it to be called. Out in a yacht, he explains, you’re in one of the few places where it’s possible to be alone and think.

THE BIG PRIZE

\VHEN Mrs R. L. King, a Wainuiomata housewife, went along to a

radio quiz in the local hall recently she knew all the answers and came home with the most valuable prize yet won in such a contest in New Zealand — a car. worth £613. She had gone because she was interested in the community centre, which was to _ benefit from the show. Mrs King’s three boys -Jonathan, aged 9, Peter, aged 7, and Christopher, aged 4-- were keenly interested when she said she would take part in the quiz, one of the It’s in the Bag series. Jonathan suggested a study of his juvenile encyclopaedia, and to please him she browsed through the book. One of the things she noticed, and remembered, was the Christian name of

Field-Marshal Montgomery-Bernard-and this was the question she had to answer to win her way into the final. To the five questions which could win the car Mrs King had _ ready answers. She knew what an implosion is, the meaning of the word insomnia, the word used to denote the art of

the proper use of the voice, the identity of

a German composer who became a ‘naturalised Englishman, and the Christian name of the singer Galli-Curci. (The answers: a bursting inwards, sleeplessness, elocution, Handel, Amelita.) | In a maze of preliminary questions, Mrs King showed a background of wide general knowledge, acquired as a school teacher at Titirangi arid Maroa, and as a child whose mother and grandfather were both journalists. "No one was more surprised than I was at winning the car,’ she said afterwards. "It’s going to be very useful, because in recent years we’ve not had one of our own."