MISS ELSIE HALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 7, 10 January 1899, Page 5

MISS ELSIE HALL.

AUSTRALIA'S PIAXISTE

Australia's pianiste, Miss Elsie Stanley Hall, will appear before an Auckland audience at the Exhibition on Thursday evening. She comes fresh from a most successful tour of Queensland, and previous to that she had delighted audiences in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, having the honour in each city, as well as in Brisbane, of playing1 under the patronage and in the jjresence of ViceRoyalty. Miss Elsie Hall's career has been a. distinguished one. Evidencing the possession of abnormal musical talent before she was two years of age she picked up by ear any music that took her fancy, and by the time she was five years, old, up to which period she had not received any musical instruction Whatever, her repertoire was a most extensive one. In ISBS the young Australian was taken to Germany that she might have the best of musical teaching, and also that she might enjoy the immense advantages arising from living in an artistic atmosphere. There she was immediately admitted to the Conservatorium of Music, where she shortly became a favourite pupil of the late Herr Professor Pruckner. In Stuttgart she created a sensation by her concert playing, and 'by command' played before the Court of Wurternberg, receiving- from Queen Olga a handsome souvenir. Proceeding thence to London Miss Hall, when only in her loth yeai'j won an open scholarship from amongst 40 competitors at the Royal College of Music, and just after attaining- her ISth year she had the proud distinction of winning the Mendelssohn State Prize (the only yearly State prize given) in competition held at the Berlin Hochschule, but practically open to the world. At a 'Vovtrags' Abend' given in the 'Hochschule fur Musik.' Berlin, by request ,of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and which was attended by Ministers and Deputies, Elsie Hall was selected as solo pianiste to represent the school. Before leaving Europe for her native land she gave pianoforte recitals in Berlin and London, winning the universal commendation of the press for her remarkably finished technique, brilliancy, and 'the charm in her playing' that'at once attracts and sustains attention.'