KOWALSKI CONCERT COMPANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 305, 24 December 1891, Page 5

KOWALSKI CONCERT COMPANY.

OPENING CONCERT TO-MORROW.

Kowalski, the eminenb pianist, has besides his well-known self, brought a concert com-

pany to New Zealand with him the like of which has seldom visited these shores. The pianist himself is too well known by his compositions to need a lengthy introduction. It suffices to say that wherever be has appeared throughout Australasia he has been received with a warmth which did not diminish when the desire to see a well-known musical composer had been gratified. People came again and again.

JVI. Kowalski plays his own well-known marches, and is an exponent of the popular rather than severely classical music. His playing has an immense reputation for sustained brilliancy and power. Herr Raimond Pechotsch, his violinist, has tha name of the best modern violinist. Hβ is devoid of trickery, and plays with great expression. Besides being a leading violiniat, Herr Pechotsch has a reputation as a conductor and composer. In Melbourne and Sydney, in fact throughout Australasia, he has received tho most flattering press notices as a violinist, as well as in his other capacities. He would appear to. be a master of instrumentation, and his playing of De Bcriot's Concerto in D, in which a vast amount of double stopping occurs, is said to be excellent indeed. Miss Minnie Vanderveer, the contralto, is spoken of as being the foremost contralto in tho colony. This is high praise indeed, and if justified, the visit of the Kowalski Concert Company will be a red letter one. She is a native of Brooklyn—young and charming, of most attractive and distinguished appearance. She possesses, so Australian and American critics say, a voice of great natural beauty, which has been perfected by good training. It is, so says the " Musical Courier " of New York, strong, flexible, pure and sympathetic in quality, with an evenness of tune throughput the entire compass rarely found in contralto voices. Tomorrow nighb she will sing " Ho was Despised " instead of the selection from "Eli." The former is more suitable, but Miss Vanderveer will doubtless give the " Eli " selection later. Ac for Miss Rossow, we all know her. Have we not gratetul .memories from the Patey concerts ? By report she has improved. Any way, she won Auckland last time, and no doubt will again. The programme for to morrow's concert is a most excellent one.