Evening star., 1962-09-23


other, you failed to get tick
cts for the gala opening Of
Philharmonic Hall in New
York's Lincoln Center to-
night, the TV will take you
there from 9 to IL. WTOP-9.
Bernstein conducts, and all
sorts of folks are featured So
loists; the program also Of
fers a COPELAND premiere. -.
Beginning morrow the
YWCA at 17th and K NV.
will offer special music class
es, each q 12-week course
meeting once weekly. On
Tuesdays at 7 and 8 pm.
Frank Sykora win run ap-
probation courses, on
Wednesdays at 6 Marian Me-
Nabb will have q class in
sight reading, and on Fridays
at 8 and z pm. Harry Hay
wood will hold group piano
classes. ME. S-2l00, Ext. 20,
for catalog and reservations.
y = .
NEWS FROM THERE
New York: The Second Di-
mitri MitropOulOs Interna-
tiOnal Music Competition, to
be held in the spring Of 1868.
win be for conductors. The
three first prize winners will
become assistant conductors
Of the New York Philhar-
mOnic in the 1854 season..
Fort Worth, Texas: The Van
Cliburn international Piano
Competition begins tomorrow
morning. Sixty-six contest
ants are, taking part, 80 of
them from the United States.
Liege, Belgium: Emerson
Meyers, Washington pianist
and composer, Ia @ member
Of the jury now meeting to
select the winner in an in
ternational competition of
string quartet compositions.
The contest, COncOurs In
ternational de QuatuoF .
COrdes, is little known here,
but it pays q very respecta-
BILE first prize Of $1,000. f.
Hamburg, Germany: Conduc-
tor Franz Alters, now guest
ing in Europe. is offering q
series Of American compost
tions on the West Germ an
Radio Network this week, un-
der the title, "The Three
American Bs." The Bs are
identified as Barber, Bern
stein and Bennett.
HAIL AND FAREWELL
Evanston, Illinois: This Is
the way the world ends" re-
marked T. s. Eliot in a poem
many years ago, mot with q
bang but a whirnper." The
Musical Courier, founded in
1880 and the Oldest musical
periodical in the United
States, will 60 out Of exist
ence with the October issue.
Reason for demise: Circula-
ton couldn't seem to rise
above 5000 copies. The an
nual directory volume will be
issued at the beginning Of
1858, as usual, and will be
continued in future II busi-
ness warrants it..
-
WORDS ON MUSIC-Our
man with the typewriter is
at it. again-yes, there is still
another new David Even
book. This weeks opus is
called The Book Of European
Light Opera (Holt, Rinehart
and winston; $3.50, and
while 1t is quite q cut above
the one reviewed in these
columns last week, ! still
wouldn't urge you to run out
and buy it.
The book purports to be-
and is-"a guide to 1877 Euro
pean comic operas, light op-
eras, operettas, opera = CO.
miques, opera-bouffes, and
opera buffas by 81 composers
with plot, production his
tory, musical highlights, criti-
cal evaluations and other rele-
want information" but it is
not a very good specimen Of
the genre.
The trouble is, first, that
Mr.. Even can't make up his
mind what an European
light Opera" is, and second,
that he is all too skimpy
when 1t comes to dispensing
knowledge about those items
he has selected for inclusion.
1t is interesting to find
among European light op-
eras" Mozart's Magic Flute, 7"
and to discover that Even
does not consider it one Of
those masterworks of the
comic-operatic theater that
are too demanding in their
aesthetic and musical appeal
to be called light"
Much as I may be partial
to such works." says our So
phisticated author, N"I deemed
them completely out Of
bounds for this book. I re-
fer to Mozart's Don Giovan-
nj, Wagner's Die Meister-
singer, Verdi's Falstaff and
Richard Strauss Der Rosen-
kavalier."
Some Of the information
Is handy, but this is just
another hack rewrite job
based on easily available