Blamires Sisters' Unusual Sonata From 2YA

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 25, 2 December 1938, Page 5

Blamires Sisters' Unusual Sonata From 2YA

for the second time in New Zealand’s musical history, 2YA listeners next week will hear Elgar’s Sonata in E Minor, played by those two talented Wellington girls, Betty and Vivienne Blamires, the former at the piano and the latter playing her violin. Vivienne Blamires told the "Record" the other day, that the first performance of the sonata in England was given by her violin professor, Mr. H. Reed, a great ° friend of Sir Edward Elgar’s. ") had lunch with Mr, Reed the day before | teft London," the said, " and I eaw the manuscript of his new book on Elgar’s life and the first copy of the sonata which Mr. Reed _,. Played from--also the rough wetes of tite cache Feare tie * pias aby co

violin concerto. They were in piases quite different from the present publisation. Mr. Reed loved Sir Edward Elgar, and during my lessons he would sometimes stop and with twinkling eyes relate some anecdote connected with the famous composer. "One passage of the sonata I found diffienlt to understand until Mr. Reed explained that it was reminiscent of the wind playing on an old harp as it came through the broken window of the attic: ‘of Elgar’s cottage. "The second ‘movement is dreamy in character and yet there is a mystery about it-the mystery one sees in an English wood in winter time, when the trees are bare and in the twilight take on queer mystical shapes. There was such a wood where Elgar used to wander. "The last movement is, m the main, calm and peaceful, but with sudden ‘bursts of wildness and every now and then harps back to the themes of the previous orKeunsatin "ry. ¢ ta