Fantastic Berlioz

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 950, 25 October 1957, Page 8

Fantastic Berlioz

"L{OW many great artists," wrote the late André Gide, "win their case only on appeal." For Hector Berlioz the appeal is not yet over, and though, by and large, invective has turned to Teassessment, the romantic Berlioz legend with its amplification of faults and fictions will take gq long time to die, "A tipsy chimpanzee" could have composed as well, wrote one critic while Berlioz was still alive-a comment that justjfied the composer’s own remarks that criticism was living like a dog, "either biting or licking"; and he at least knew both aspects of it. One composition that has provided unlimited ammunition for both those who like and those who dislike his music is the Symphonie Fantastique, a work which will be performed by the National Orchestra in a concert at the Lower Hutt Town Hall on Thursday, October 31._ This "Episode in an Artist’s Life," in five parts, made its official appearance in Paris on December 5, 1830, In the programme the composer wrote that he had "aimed at developing from certain scenes what they contain that is musical." There are five movements: Appassionata, Waltz, Pastoral, Death March, and Witches’ Dance, "It is the final two movements that justify the title fantastic," writes Jacques Barzun, "and it was praise when the Figaro termed the entire work ‘bizarre’ and ‘monstrous.’ . . . If to this day the Witches’ Dance finale still seems modern and aptly monstrous, one can gauge its effect on eardrums unaccustomed to dissonance, clashing rhythms, and polytonality." To have a work parodied, it has been said, is a sign’ of success-for the parody to be appreciated the original must be well known. Berlioz was accorded this compliment in a _ public parody of the Symphonie Fantastique only four years after its first official. performance. "You will hear a grand Symphony,". the audience were told, "An Episode in a Gambler’s Lite. To make my dramatic thoughts understood I have no need of words, singers, or scenery. All this, gentlemen, is in my orchestra, You will hear my hero speak. You will see him portrayed from head to foot, and at the second reprise of the first allegro, I will show you how he puts on his necktie. Ah, the wonders of instrumental music!" Symphonie Fantastique (the second half of the concert at Lower Hutt) will be recorded and broadcast from YAs, 3YZ and 4YZ at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, November 3. In the first part of this same concert (all YCs, 8.0 p.m., Thursday, October 31) the works to be heard are the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.in F Major, K.459, by Mozart (soloist David Galbraith); Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela, and the Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor. Also next. week in a concert from the Auckland. Town Hall (1YC, Saturday, November 2), the Australian soprano Glenda Raymond with other soloists, the Auckland .Choral Society, and the Auckland String Players conducted by Ray Wilson, will present the Mozart Mass in C Minor for four solo voices, chorus, « a and organ, In 1782, Mozart mentioned in a letter to his ‘father that he was writing a choral work to celebrate his engagement to Constanze Weber, and that she would be given the main solo (soprano) part. The work (the Mass in C Minor) was, however, never completed; a= strange fact when it is considered that this is probably the only major work

that Mozart ever wrote for himself. One can only suppose that more urgent compositions¢(for which he would get paid) took prior place. Besides Glenda Raymond, the other soloists taking part in this Mass are Mona Ross (mezzo-soprano), Maurice Larsen (tenor) and Donald McIntyre (bass); with Trevor Sparling at the organ. Also included in this programme S. choral music is Vaughan Williams’s nade to Music, and the seldom d Beethoven Fantasia for piano, and orchestra in which the solo piano part will be played by David Galbraith, Opera by Walton The fifth and last of the English opera series to be heard this month

from the YCs is Sir William Walton’s Troilus and Cressida, This work was originally commissioned by " the BBC and had its first performance at Covent Garden in November, 1954. Its success was immediate, and Troilus and Cressida went into the repertoires of companies all over the world. "For Italian tastes it is a singer’s opera,’ wrote The Times music critic, "for German, a music-drama; for us it is English by origin and nature; for all it is universal in its address in the international language of dramatic music." Christopher Hassall drew the libretto of Troilus and Cressida from Chaucer’s narrative poem, but added many new ideas, notably in the delineation of the character of Cressida herself. Both Chaucer and Shakespeare leave her fate uncertain, in this opera version she commits suicide. Some of the musical highlights are the opening chorus in front of the Temple of Padlas, the orchestral interlude between the scenes of Act II, the great sextet, and the cumulative power of Cressida’s closing scene before she stabs herself with Troilus’s sword. The performance, to be — heard from all YCs at 8.0 pm. on Tuesday, October 29, — is by the Covent Garden | Opera Chorus and Orchestra | conducted by Sir Malcolm © Sargent, with the following — soloists: Richard Lewis (tenor) as Troilus; Magda Laszlo (soprano) as Cressida, Peter Pears (tenor) as Pandarus, and Geraint Evans (baritone) as Antenor.