Wellington Symphony Orchestra

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 42, 2 May 1930, Page 4

Wellington Symphony Orchestra

New Season Opens With Brilliant Programme

eee SINCE its inauguration towards the end of the 1928 concert season, the Wellington’ Symphony Orchestra has scored repeated successes, Rarely in the history of local musical enterprisé has such progress in every way been made in almost a single year. Competent critics have already testified: to the artistic success of the season that is past. Business men in the person of auditors have witnessed to the financial success of this ambitious undertaking. Surely a credit balance for the first full season of an incorporated musical society is financial success! And this in spite of the fact that over 180 guineas were paid out during the season to professional players in the orchestra. The all-round success of the venture is a wonderful tribute to the energy and enthusiasm of everyone concerned. . . Credit for the artistic excellence of the several performances must of course go to the orchestra’s indefatigable conductor, Mr. Leon de Mauny. No one in New Zealand, possibly, has had such varied orchestral experience. His training in orchestral technique has been in the hardest school, and his apprenticeship has been served under the greatest orchestral masters the world has yet seen. Nikisch, Safanoff, Hans Richter, Weingartmer, Kousseivitsky, Beecham, Henry Wood. Wellington is indeed fortunate in having the honorary services of such a musician. Wxperience is not always, as in this case, allied in the one person with such superb musicianship. Nor must the players themselves be forgotten. Almost all the strings have for the past seven years been in training for ensemble work under Mr. de Mauny’s own direction. Little wonder, then, that attack, intonation, phrasing, and blend of tone is of such unusual excellence. Wood and brass players have been chosen from the finest instra-

mentalists available; and the whole ore chestral personnel has risen on each performance to the highest standard of playing that has been heard in the Dominion since the visit some. yearsy ago by Henri Verbrugghen. The first concert of the new season is announced for Thursday, May 8. The first half of the programme will be Gsvoted to three of Mendelssohn’s works: Fingal’s Oave Overture, The Violin Concerto, and the Italian Sym-phony-three works that are, each one, in the forefront of their class. They possess, in addition to the more fundamental virtues of a musical work of genius, a capacity for being immediately appreciated by the man in the street. Lovely melodies, strong and piquant rhythms, and vivid orchestral colourings. The second half of the programme should be well known to almost all who take even the slightest interest in music. Luigini’s "Hgyptian Ballet," "Finlandia" (Sibelius), the Orchestral Suite from Coleridge-Taylor’s "Hiawatha," and, last of all, that popular thriller, the March from "The Damnation of Faust" (Berlioz hp This performance will undoubtedly be eagerly awaited by broadcast-listen-ers all over New Zealand. But-as we have stated before-it must be remembered that this broadcast is for lovers of orchestra] music outside of Wellington; and, of course, for those in the Capital City who are sick, or through other grave reasons are unable to receive the big extra thrill of both seeing and hearing the actual performance. Wellingtonians who are able-bodied--and who have two shillings or more to spend on an enjoyment that. will not easily be forgotten-aré expected to be "among those present" in. the Town Hall at precisely two minutes © to elght o’clock.