Wellington's Big Night

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 4, 4 August 1933, Page 3

Wellington's Big Night

__ EE QN Thursday evening of this week, August 3, there will be presented at the Wellington Town Hall one of the outstanding events of the capital city’s musical season. The Wellington Symphony Orchestra under the conductorship of Mr. Leon de Mauny is presenting a splendid concert, including a number that has never been presented before by a New Zealand orchestra. This concert is to be broadcast by 2YA. Below are brief notes on the compositions.

Y his own admission, Tschaikovsky was inwardly, throughout the greater part of his life, a soul in tormeut The first number on the programme, the "Pathetic Symphony,’ composed in the early months of 1893, was intended to express certain personal emotions which he would confide in no one in words. The first performance of the work took place in St. Petersburg on October 28, but it was somewhat coldly received upon its first presentation. It was on the morning after the concey* that Tschaikovsky, at his brother’s suggestion, gave the symphony the title by which it is now known. On November 6 of the same year, after four day’s illness, he died of cholera, attributed to the drinking of tainted water; but grave rumours of suicide were spread in Petersburg on the day of his funeral, rumours which have never been completely set at rest. A devastating epidemic of Asiatic cholera did, however sweep through Russia and Germany in 1893, and so there may be little foundation for the rumours. . The composer’s sudden death brough: this symphony at once into prominence and for many years it has represented the furthest extreme to which tragic emotion.could be expressed in music Josef Rheinberger, the composer of the Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, another important contribution to the evening

was born in 1889 at Vaduz, the capital of Leichtenstein; he died at Munich in 1901. At the age of five he received his first pianoforte lessons. Exven at that tender age his natural aptitude for musie was made abundantly evident, for within two years, as rapid was his progress, he was appointed organist to the church he was then attending, signalising the event by composing a Mass with organ accompaniment-at the uge of seven! Five years later he entered the Munich Conservatoire of Musie, where he remained as a student till he reached the age of nineteen, being then uppointed teacher of pianoforte. Later he held various professorships aud conduetorships, and gained an international reputation as a teacher, many of his ~upils attaining great eminence. Mr. Harison Cook, one of the soiois of the evening. is to sing Mozart's ‘We Know No Thought of Vengeance," The story relates how, following the un successful attempts on the purt of the Queen of the Night and Monastotos, the Moor, to carry out their revenge, Sar&s tro, the Iligh Priest, with characteris tic gentleness, explains to Paminsa (daughter of the Queen of the Night). the attitude toward vengeance adopted by those who have been initiated into the rites of Osiris and Isis. This number ranks amongst Mozart’s finest achievements. The solemnity of the ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee See ee Te? Te? Pe? TT) hee oti,

vocal score is enhanced by the beauty of the rich, but restrained, orchestra] accompaniment, At this concert will be preseuted for the first time in New Zealand Goldmark’s "Sakuntala." It is difficult for the music lover to resist the impulse to associate with music some scene or story derived from personal or other experience, Almost invariably the imaginative mind when concentrated upon music can summon out of emotional or physical experience something of which the music is an expression. One does not, therefore, wish to be informed that the composer himself was not seeking to depict some fantasy of his imagination or personal emotion, and least of all that the most elaborate and formal composition is mathematical rather than emotional in character. There is much great music of which this may be said. but certainly it couJd not apply to this delightful work of Goldinark. with its irresistible appeal regardless of the individual viewpoint toward music, Grieg’s "Peer Gynt" suite closes this outstanding programme,