The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 22

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

| S Vaughan Williams ages, we feel ! bound to celebrate each birthday with a display of his work, and if an early work can be resuscitated and set on its feet, so much the better. By the time he is ninety, we will have to dig among childish scrawls to find anything still unperformed: though I _ hardly think his most enthusiastic fans will go as far as that. Still we have heard several programmes celebrating his anni--versary recently, and the earlier works are interesting; either in themselves, ‘or because they can give us more insight into his later styles. After all, the fresh and ingenious works, each so different and yet so individual, that he ‘is still producing, display their novelty in a combination of features that taken singly are perfectly uncomplicated, even obvious; and these features,- such as modal writing, folk elements, thickish orchestration and mysticism, can all be found separately in the compositions of his formative years. One such is the song cycle The House of Life, which we heard sung by Donald Munro (NZBS); in these little pictures, hardly touched by modal influence, we find Vaughan Williams the lyricist, writing touching tunes in something of a drawing-room style. Even these, hardly ‘recognisable as being the work of the

composer of Sinfonia Antartica, have a quality that stands the test of time. So has the Charterhouse Suite (named for his old school), which was given by the Alex Lindsay Strings (NZBS); this suite, much in the modal manner, called forth some very lovely string playing; of course, it contains some lovely string writing, but I feel the orchestra did a great deal to enhance it. Especially good were the prelude and the cunningly-varied chaconne-like final movement. This group also accompanied the Wellington Training College Choir in the cantata Sons of Light, and the instrumental work was delightfully done; I cannot say the same for the voices, for their words lacked definition, and the tone had no contrasts-softness without sweetness, and a rather ny majesty in places. The National Orchestra added its quota, too, with beautiful playing in the Norfolk Rhapsody (NZBS), particularly in its folksy solo work; while, in complete contrast, they performed the Eighth Symphony in a concert (YC link) in all its novelty of orchestration. The latter work was somewhat uneven in quality apart from the string Cavatina, but was still quite satisfying. Thus ended Vaughan Williams’s birthday oes: may we celebrate many more of em.