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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University. Wellington Vol. 24, No. 2. 1961

Fine Arts Section

page 11

Fine Arts Section

Records

Bliss. Checkmate Suite.

Handel. Water Mtudc Suite.

Purcell. Aim and Dances.

Sinfonia of London/Bliss, World Record Club Tz 129.

Checkmate, composed in 1937, is a pleasant little ballet, full of quirks and smirks, receiving here as it does, a fine performance from the Sinfonia of London. This is a very spacious recording, but play it with plenty of top cut and bass boost: the strings are overall wonderfully clear and full, Ihe percussion crisp and forward. The woodwind is as usual, at Its English mellowest; with some notable oboe playing from virtuoso Goossens. I would assume it a more successful ballet proper, than a Suite for music—the orchestration at times, tends toward the banal.

The Water Music on this disc is played from the original edition of 1717; some notable features being, the horns using much more trill than in the Harty arrangement, and, in the Hornpipe, the roles of trumpet and horn have been reversed—all this, I may say, to great benefit. The performance is extremely well handled by Sir Arthur Bliss.

The arrangement of airs and dances, also on the record, is probably its most successful item, musically—though obviously not trad. Purcell.

Tchaikovski. Symphony No. 6 in B minor. Sinfonia of London/Mathieson, World Record Club TZ 127.

For a work which requires originality in approach, a subtleness of imagination and a dynamism in drive, we are here, treated to a rather curiously flat, and, one may say, false interpretation. There is little or no originality in Muir Mathieson's performance, and in no one section is there the imaginative expression there should be: his reading on the whole is spirited, but it is a spirit devoid of life, warmth and any essence of emotional appeal.

The orchestra too, fails to maintain a reasonable standard; the chief lack here being in the strings, having no lushness and little depth. And though one can merit the group with some particularly fine woodwind phrasing (as in the initial Adagio), a generally capable and extremely sonorous brass section, and duly uninhibited playing, the lack of cohesiveness, the superficiality of sound, mars the whole recording.

I am aware that this record (and others of the same make), may be specially compensated for the home radiogram. The usage on such equipment will no doubt remove much of a dominant tape-hiss and brittleness in the strings: no amount of compensation however, will hide the glaring mistakes, as when the strings (in IV coda) play a full f when it should have been ppp.

Films

Gervaise

In the Aurenche and Bost movie adaptation of Zola's L'Assomoir, we see a unity between cinematic and literary realism, so often striven after in the cinema, yet attained with such little success. Gervaise features the embodiment of a spirit, essentially that of Zola and his nineteenth century Paris, and a creative artistry, essentially Rene Clement, which has resulted in a work of great importance, not only to novelist and director, hut to the cinema generally, the French cinema in particular.

Indeed, Clement has not produced better. Not from his initial La Bataille du Rail to the late Le Diahle Amoureux, and Including the outstanding Jeux Interdits (1954), has he reached such a pinnacle of understanding, enforced such assiduity for period creation and achieved such rapport between the literary and cinema figure. Gervaise true enough, is the movie of Clement, yet it is not such a personal tour de force of his as may generally be felt: it is not entirely his solidarity as director which we feel is responsible for its greatness, inasmuch as it is the players themselves—naming in particular Francois Perier and Maria Schell. In the former, we have everything of the good-natured Parisian working man, finally diseased by alcohol to the point of hopelessness: his is an easy life, a life of squalor, but one without desires, attainments and care.

Maria Schell's being cast as the central figure has raised many eyebrows, and caused a good many adverse remarks. Yet why? Surely she is the very figure of Zola's Provencale, in giving, as she does, Gervaise a character of strength, a moral fibre which never lapses, an almost sorrowful contempt of the world. Her expressionism I found curiously unincongruous, a little unsure at time perhaps, but full of detail and emotion. Witness when, after her husband has ruined her shop, we see in a final close-up of her face all the torment and frustration which has been latent for so many years, take a final, moving, grotesque relief. By all accounts, a grand performance.

As La Belle et la Bete and La Passion de Jeanne d'Are were, or rather, are, great achievements, for their singularity of style and purpose; Gervaise is great too, for its singular, tangible evocation of human suffering, hope and despair.

Butterfield 8

This is an unfortunate film, suffering from acute star exploitation and a hopelessly sick script. Fairly obviously, in any film starring such a photogenic beauty as Elizabeth Taylor, one is going to be confronted with a fair bit of close-up work, time out for dressing, undressing, etc., and other tedious but money-making routines. This inevitably happens here, the point being it carries on to the limit of absurdity. The opening sequence, for instance, takes place in a bedroom, with sole occupant Taylor cavorting around, mooching, sighing appropriately, suffering the camera to take in her glorious figure, all with the sole accompaniment of a ludicrous woodwind obligato—and this for about seven minutes of precious film time.

The script, an adaptation of John O'Hara's novel, is disgusting. It literally jerks through the movie, like a bad case of St. Vitus through the Ballet Russe. Again, the pretentious and childish acting of Miss Taylor, ably assisted by Laurence Harvey and Eddie Fisher (who's he, anyway?), does nothing to relieve the burden of a film which— going by Daniel Mann's presence alone—could at least have had the makings of a respectable piece of cinema.

Music

Four Promenade Concerts were given by the National Orchestra in Wellington this festival; a varied, on the whole interesting, series, catering to all levels, assuaging all tastes. Below is a review of the first concert.

Elizabeth Taylor proposes a toust to Eddie Fisher and the hitter's suspicious girl friend, Susan Oliver, In a scene from "Butterfield 8," Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film version of John O'Hara's explosive novel. Also starred in the Pandro S. Bennan production are Laurence Harvey and Dina Merrill. The new picture was filmed in CinemaScope and colour.

Elizabeth Taylor proposes a toust to Eddie Fisher and the hitter's suspicious girl friend, Susan Oliver, In a scene from "Butterfield 8," Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film version of John O'Hara's explosive novel. Also starred in the Pandro S. Bennan production are Laurence Harvey and Dina Merrill. The new picture was filmed in CinemaScope and colour.

In the opening, Alfred Hill Overture of Welcome, ihe audience found a startling, highly unconventional pot-pouri, composed out of stage and musical irregularities; and a rendition successful in the extreme—but obviously embarrassing to a usually staid orchestra. Ibert, however, enabled the players to find their mark. A light-heart-ed work, with a minimum of serious musicai thought, the Divertissement came off remarkably well: a point worth noting—though scored for small orchestra, Mr Hopkins utilised his full string ensemble, to no disadvantage, as the playing was as light and gay as could be wished for.

With Honegger's Pacific 231, though, we were confronted with things in a more dramatic vein. Curiously enough, this music is far more successful when heard with the accompanying film (shown by the V.U.F.S. last year). The performance was reasonable, considering the piece is hard to pull off well.

Saint-Saens Camaval des Animaux was easily the most enjoyed item of the evening. All credit goes to duo-pianists Judith McDonald and Shirley Power, and to narrator David Tinkum, for a most enjoyable zoo trip. Some notable cello playing by Farquhar Wilkinson in Le Cygne must also not go unmentioned.

As if for good measure, the programme also included another little known work—Beethoven's Battle of Vittoria Op. 91. Rather trite when compared against some of Tchaikovski, a master in creating enjoyable blatancies, this work obviously taxed various sections— brass and percussion—to the full; and left the audience musing, 'and all that fuss about Schoenberg being so discordent—well!' An enjoyable evening, if messy in some ways, unique and interesting in other?

Two men standing back to back holding pistols