The Week's Music

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 950, 25 October 1957, Page 20

The Week's Music

by

SEBASTIAN

Ss SIBELIUS has died at last, one of the longest-lived and best-loved of composers; few become national institutions in their lifetimes. His legacy to us contains no "last-period" works like Beethoven’s, no yotithfully striving creations like Vaughan Williams; and his rumoured eighth symphony seems destined to remain a rumour. It is almost as though he said what he wanted to say, and then stopped, like a good orator eschewing vain repetition once his meaning was clear. Wery properly we were given a brief memorial programme (YC link) by the National Orchestra, in which they played some of his freshest, most appealing work-Findlandia, the Karelia Suite, and the storm from the "Tempest" music. Here he is not so much concerned with symphonic design as with pictorial and vital music, breathing of his north lands and thundering their solemnities. The Orchestra gave of their best in tone and vivid colour, with some fine brass playing in particular, and I feel Sibelius’s intentions were served well. Certainly he will be remembered for such shorter pieces as he is for his full symphonic canvasés. Again this year we have been well served by the BBC in respect of the Edinburgh Festival, and have visited

al many of its concerts by proxy. The standard as usual was high, in recording as well as in performance, and we had plenty of variety. I felt the show was stolen by the recital of Victoria de los Angeles, whose indéscribable voice demands eulogies which can never do it justice. But there were other good things, among them Hindemith’s Symphonic Dances, partaking more of the concert than the darfice in feeling, but in a very Teutonic good humour, from the Bavarian Radio Orchestra; and an amusing concertante by Kox for brass solo instruments, from the Concettgebouw Orchestra. The whole series was wonderful, as one would expect of the world’s great artists. In, contradistinction to the somewhat messy pfogrammes of last year, the present series of the New Zealand Music Society in London (BBC) are nicely contrasted and presented, with a wide range of styles and even the odd New Zealatid composef. I’vé po bh most of what I heard, and it would be idle to go into much detail; but the sofigs by Finzi and Oldham from John and Sue Thompson I found especially appealing. These programmes go a long way towards showing what our young musicians are doing; and from what we can hear, they are doing well,