The St. Peter's Players

Oscar Wilde remarks in "The Importance of being Ernest" that "if one plays good music people don't listen, and if one plays bad rhusic people don't talk". The interval music for the play was good and well performed, and people did listen. The Atkinson brothers, W. B. Hawkins and J. Ford were an admirable quartet, and the music well chosen and well played. The first night your reporter was there R. B. Atkinson could not play the piano owing to a minor injury in the final House match; but his "substitute" was the Director of Music. So we can congratulate ourselves !

Lastly a word must be said about the Production and‘the Producer. It means almost everything to our School plays to have as experienced and expert a producer as Mr. Burgess. The players know best how much the whole play, and their own interpretation of their parts, owe to Mr. Burgess. How he does it all, handicapped by a small stage, we do not profess to know. But, despite his habitual pessimism where a School play is concerned, he does do it : and "The Taming of the Shrew" can clearly, and by common consent, be acclaimed as a great success. We thank him and all his players for a thrilling evening. C.P.

The cast was as follows :-

Baptista (a rich gentleman of Padua) ... Vincentio (an old gentleman of Pisa) ... Lucentio (son to Vincentio) Petruchio (a gentleman of Verona) ... Gremio Suitors to Bianca Hortensio ••• Tranio Servants to Lucenti ' • • '•' Curtis Servants to Petruchio ••• i • •• Grumio Biondello

A Pedant • • • • • • • • - • • • Katharine i Bianca Widow ... Daughters to Baptista 1 ••• ... ... ... ... " • Tailor ... Haberdasher 1st Servant 2nd Servant 3rd Servant — • Waiting Woman • • • " • "• • " •" "'

P. L. BARDGETT D. N. SIMMONS J. B. WEIGHTMAN A. G. D. STAINES

R. M. KIRKUS C. K. SMITH IL M. HICK

W. R. 1BBERSON T. E. THOMAS

P. W. MIDDLEBROOK M. J. BADDELEY E. 1. MOORE D. J. OLDMAN P. L. BELLWOOD M. WILLSTROP M. A. BUTTERWORTH P. K. LAPIDOE D. N. SIMMONS C. G. HOWAT P. L. BELLWOOD

We reprint the following note from the programme of "The 'taming of the Shrew". It may be of interest to the general readers of "The Peterite" :- The tradition of dramatic performances by boys of St. Peter's

School goes back to the beginnings of the secular theatre in

England. We have two records of St. Peter's productions during the Headmastership of John Pullen (1575-1591). 28

The first is in the Chamberlain's Book of York Minster for the year 1575 :

XXs to my Ld. Stafford men players.

XXs to the Scollers of the Horsefair players.

Xs to Lancashyre men players. (At that time the School was housed in the former St. Mary's Hospital, in the district known as the Horsefair, where it remained until the destruction of the premises in the Civil War.)

The second is found in the York City Chamberlain's Book for 1585 :

To John Pullen's Skollers wch played in the Common Hall 40s.

To E. of Worcester's Players 10s.

To L. of Oxford's Players 20s.

It is an intriguing thought that Guy Fawkes, who was 15 at the time, might have taken part in the latter performance before the Lord Mayor and dignitaries of the City.

In Elizabeth's reign such companies of boy players were associated with the Chapels Royal and several of the schools, including, besides St. Peter's, St. Paul's, Westminster, and the Merchant Taylors'. Their popularity was a matter of concern to the professionals, as we know from Hamlet (Act II, ii) : "There is, Sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for it : these are now the fashion and berattle the common stages."

We hope that the present representatives of the tradition are not unworthy of a lineage which goes back 20 years before Shakespeare wrote The Taming of the Shrew in 1595. L.B.

THE MUSIC SOCIETY

lion. Secretary: J. N. T. HOWAT. Hon. Librarians: P. L. BA.Rnovrr, E. TURNER.

The Society organised two Saturday evening meetings, the first a concert given by members of the Music Staff and the second a group of lectures given by three members of the Committee with gramophone illustrations. The informal Friday meetings given in Big Hall between the end of morning school and dinner took place weekly until the coming of the play, foreshadowed by the erection of the proscenium arch, made it seem best to discontinue them until next term. These recitals were well supported and were as follows :— Tchaikovsky—programme devised by the Secretary. Overtures—programme devised by M. A. Butterworth. 29

A piano recital by Mr. Waine. Marches—programme devised by J. C. Oldroyd. Beethoven Overtures—programme devised by M. J. Quarmby. Music descriptive of Spain—programme devised by the Secretary.

We would like to congratulate W. B. Hawkins on being selected as a viola player in the National Youth Orchestra. He took part in the recent performance under Walter Susskind at the Edinburgh Festival. We are glad to hear that he has been accepted for the N.Y.O. 1953 season. When are we going to hear some gramophone records made by this orchestra?

MUSIC SOCIETY CONCERT Saturday, 18th October, 1952

Taking for granted the popularity of the Saturday night societies, their appeal may best be judged from the proportion of senior to junior supporters. The former attend because they are attracted by the programme of music, the subject to be expounded, the motion to be debated, or because they anticipate that the matter will be attractively presented or because they like the personality of those taking part. The latter may be influenced by all these considerations or they may merely be escaping organised "prep.". This is not necessarily undesirable if their interest is awakened in a subject new to them.

The point has a bearing on the arrangement of the concert. The programme on this occasion was planned on historical lines, with the result that it was not until the fourth item that the younger members of the audience heard music composed in a style with which they were familiar. This may have been meant as a compliment to their taste and intelligence, but as propaganda for the cause of good music it risked being ineffective.

The evening's music was launched into the cold atmosphere of Big Hall by Mr. Walker and Mr. Wicks playing the Sonata in C minor by Handel. Neither side, performers nor audience, seemed to be entirely happy, which may have been because so early in the programme the audience had not yet settled down to the agreeable task of giving its whole attention to the music. This may have been reflected in a somewhat diffident approach by the performers.

In his interpretation of Haydn's pianoforte Sonata in G., Mr. Waine invested Haydn's robust style with a delicacy and charm which proved an admirably contrived contrast to the splendid sonata for violin and piano in B flat by Mozart which followed it. This magnificent work received at the hands of 'Mr. Wicks and Mr. Walker a memorable and vital performance. By now the audience was acclimatised to the music and showed its appreciation of this work of genius with the first hearty applause of the evening. 30

There followed a group of Nocturnes. The first by Field and the next two by Chopin, who wrote later and is said to have taken the form from Field, the originator of Nocturnes as salon pieces. Fully expecting that compared with the Field, the Chopin would display sentimentality, we were glad to find this was not so, but rather that Chopin was bringing to full realisation something that was implicit but not stated in the Field. The last Nocturne was Gabriel Faures early nocturne in E flat. Faure was a late 19th century composer (who, like Beethoven, became deaf in later life), and recently his music has become popular in this country. He is a master of pianoforte texture and is capable of writing music of sustained intensity. In this nocturne we were impressed more by the superb intricacy of the pianistic writing than by the lyricism of the melodies. Mr. Waine's interpretation showed true insight into the varying styles of this group.

Mr. Walker's last group included three commentaries on themes of old Spanish composers by Joaquin Nin. Nin is a Spanish solo pianist held in great repute in Latin-American countries and a distinguished composer and musicologist. These commentaries are admirable display pieces for the violin, the last being particularly lively with a strong feeling of gypsy music.

Mr. Waine started his last group of piano solos with a vigorous performance of Chopin's "Revolutionary Study". We were on familiar ground here, but immediately he launched out into the uncharted seas of Lennox-Berkeley's Preludes. Here we wished that more weight had been transferred to the latter end of the programme from the earlier numbers, for we would have found even a single Chopin Prelude interesting for comparison. Like Howard Ferguson, Lennox-Berkeley has mastered the knack of effective and economical writing for the pianoforte. The Preludes are romantic in mood and yet characteristically modern in idiom.

It was only in the piece by Delibes that the audience unconsciously began to keep time and a sudden, though gay end came to the advertised concert when Mr. Waine gave a delicate yet lively treatment of the "Hurdy-Gurdy Man" by Eugene Goossens. As an encore Mr. Waine added a piece in similar vein by Arthur Benjamin, "Soldiers in the distance", and the concert which had started so seriously with three sonatas ended with a smile.

We thank all those who were concerned with producing the concert and we hope in the near future to enjoy a programme drawn up on more personal and less conventional lines.

J. C. OLDROYD.

Editor's note.—Mr. Waine tells us that he hopes it will be possible to give Oldroyd an opportunity of working out a programme for a Saturday evening concert next term.

LECTURES

Three lectures were delivered at the meeting of the Music Society on Saturday, 22nd November. After a preliminary speech by Mr. Waine from the chair, we were enlightened upon the subject of "The minuet and trio in orchestral music" by J. N. T. Howat. It seems that it was the French composer, Lulli, who first conceived the idea of minuet and trio. Mozart and Haydn took up the thread and followed a similar pattern, but Haydn forsook the stately splendour of the old minuet and gave it "light-hearted humour", while Mozart kept to much the same lines, though rather more subdued. The minuet and trio forms the third movement of most symphonies written by classical composers (i.e., up to Beethoven) and is also common in quartets, sonatas, and other chamber works. We heard the third movement of Haydn's "Oxford" Symphony and Mozart's 39th Symphony, sometimes sub-titled the "Clarinet" Symphony. The Clarinet has his solo in the trio (so called because it was originally written in three-part harmony). In his symphonies Beethoven further revolutionised the minuet and trio until in the "Eroica" it became more of a Scherzo and trio, although the form remained similar. We heard an inspiring example from Beethoven's 1st Symphony and heard how Beethoven had pursued the idea to its logical conclusion in a stirring performance of the third movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony with the famous horn trio.

The second talk appeared to be more popular than either of the others. M. J. Quarmby called his lecture "Jazz appreciation". This subject is connected with minuets and trios, in that both are forms of dance music. Jazz was born in New Orleans in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. It developed from negro inspiration : the rhythms they used before they were enslaved : the tunes they sang at work, and, strange though it may seem, the Victorian hymn-tune in their first Christian services. The negroes eventually taught themselves various brass instruments, of which they were particularly fond. By 1920 the jazz had so developed that it was heard not only all over America, but in this country too. It wa3 in this period that authentic or purist jazz (as opposed to swing, boogie-woogie, and others) reached its height. The lecturer claimed that the essential difference between swing and jazz is that for jazz there is no printed music; it is merely a theme and variations. In swing there is generally a vocalist and the urge to dance. It is, he asserted, almost impossible to dance to jazz. The rhythm section of the jazz band is based on the piano, string bass and drums, and the tune is played by the guitar, clarinet, trumpet, cornet, and the later additions, trombone, saxophone and tuba, the brass instruments, more often than not, being muted. Jazz bands breed brilliant virtuosi. Concluding, our lecturer advised us not to support jazz at the cost of classics, but to treat it just as negro folk music. Jazz is now, without doubt, stepping aside to let swing take its place. 32