The Music Society

Hon. Secretary: A. BLOOMFIELD.

A meeting of the Society, entitled "Judge for yourself", was held in Big Hall on Saturday evening, 12th February. Between 60 and 70 members of the School attended. The meeting was organised on the lines of a trial in which each of three pieces of music, previously selected by the Committee, was played, defended and attacked in prepared speeches, played again and then further criticised by members of the School.

R. M. Kirkus expounded the virtues of Rossini's overture "The thieving magpie", acclaimed its virtuosity and obviously found in it more to touch the emotions than did some of the audience. R. N. Johnson compared Rossini with Tennyson and suggested that Rossini's overtures, now so highly prized, had been rescued from the bandstand by Sir Thomas Beecham. He attacked the loudness of the orchestration. After the work had been repeated M. Willstrop ably rebutted this argument by demonstrating that there was nothing to criticise in loudness per se : it could be, and in this case was a perfectly artistic contrast to softness.

Talking of softness brought the programme naturally to the second item—the theme of the Largo from Dvorak's Symphony "From the New World". A. M. Marsh, confessing to a catholic taste, established the argument that the music conveyed the composer's feelings to the audience. He pointed to the deftness of the scoring and the sincerity and longing of the melody. There was no paper speaker to find sentimentality in Dvorak's sentiment, but A. H. Sneezby from the floor of the hall raised an interesting point about nostalgia and nostalgic music which could easily form the basis for a whole evening's interesting discussion.

P. L. Bardgett's introduction to "For unto us a child is born" from Handel's Messiah was scholarly and showed a first-hand acquaintance with Handel's choral music. He put forward the hypothesis that for Handel the chorus was an extension of the orchestra, that Handel treated it as another family of instruments. He related "For unto us" to Messiah as a whole contrasting its light with the darkness before. A. G. D. Staines, after an amusing introduction was content to criticise the inclusion of "For unto us" without its context.

C. R. 'Clough, K. Brown, R. A. Field, N. R. Barton, and D. B. Irvin also spoke.

The Friday recitals were continued during the term. The first was in the nature of a "trailer" for the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra concert on the following Sunday. Others were 'presented by Canon Patteson, P. L. Bardgett, the Secretary, M. J. Baddeley, A..M. Marsh, R. D. Beckitt, and K. Brown. The programmes were varied, ranging from "Storm Music" and the tone pictures in Elgar's Enigma variations to the music of Bach and Beethoven. Attendance at the recitals improved as the term proceeded.