SINGERS AND PLAYERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 191, 12 August 1911, Page 14

SINGERS AND PLAYERS.

The Auckland Competition Society's Festival promises to draw even a larger number of entries than last year. Judging from the number of inquiries received by the managing secretary, competitors in large numbers will journey from all parts of the Dominion. The Festival this year extends over a period of twelve days, and many additional classes have been added to the programme. The 6010 pianist recital, with its £ 140 prize, will be responsible for a big entry, and, as some of the finest pianists in the South are contemplating making the trip North the test pieces should receive most artistic treatment. The choir contest will again be a feature of the Festival, and the scholars in the various schools will enter a choir for the Public Schools Choir Contest, as nothing finer musically can foe heard than a choir of young fresh voices.

Sousa and his band had a great reception on their opening night in Christchurch, the spacious King Edward barracks were packed to the doors and after their opening number the band received an ovation. The secret of Sousa's success is that he pleases the ordinary person., He doesn't make the mistake of imagining the majority as artistic—the majority is not, and so the great man cuts his cloth accordingly. The programme for the opening night in Christchurch was a perfect sample of discretion —the taste of that difficult person, "Everybody," was remembered. Travelling by special train, the band spends a few hours in Hamilton on the 23rd to give an early matinee, and opens the same night in the Opera House here. A singer who holds the rank of a Princess of the famous Ngapuhi tribe of New Zealand, Madame Peara Nene, is now on a visit to Sydney. She has been for some time past a resident of London, where heT husband lives, and has appeared at the Crystal Palace and Queen's Hall. Her unusual voice has attracted considerable attention there. It is really of robust tenor quality, and though she is able to produce a beautiful silvery soprano, this is accomplished onty when she sings falsetto, so that her natural range is the tenor. Indeed, her compass is the phenomenal one of three octaves. She is able to descend to the A of the bass clef, then ascend to the high soprano. Madame Nene's voice, Mr. Alfred Hill states, exemplifies a theory he has always held, that the Maori voices are all naturally within the tenor and bass compasses. It is certainly remarkable to hear a woman interpreting "I'll Sine Thee Sones of Arabv." and other music of that kind in the voice of a lyric tenor. Madame Nene, who speaks English perfectly, and in soft, liquid accents, sings with much temperament. She has •had lessons while in London from Mr. Arthur Fagge, conductor of the London Choral. Society, who has encouraged her to develop the higher resristers. She is now returning f.-orn a visit to he* mother in Norfolk Island, and it is hoped to arrange for her appearance on the Sydney platform before she returns to London, Madame Nene, who was born at the Bay of Islands, in the Auckland district, is a descendant of the celebrated Maori chieftain, Tamati Waka Nene.

Probably Antonla Dolores stands ■unique among present day singers as a recitalist (says the musical contributor of the Sydney "Sun.") No other artist can so consistently attract and hold large audiences as she does by the power of her superb vocal art, or, as one might fittingly term it, the charm of her vocal individuality. Of Mdlle. Dolores's "school" and technical attainments, it is scarcely necessary to speak. The world has long recognised her as the possessor of a great natural gift of voice which she has cultivated with singular care. Txing years of arduous and sincere study have given her a technical equipment rare even among the great ones of song. Indeed, at the present time, the singers who have attained perfection in technique can be easily counted. Melba, Calve, and Dolores etand unrivalled among the woman vocalists, while Sant!ey and Watkin Mills are almost the remaining male examples of the exquisite Italian bel canto. It is interesting to note that Philip New.bury, a tenor who has long been popular in Australia, also possesses technique of the highest order. The distinguished singer is due in Paris next December, where after a rest and the fulfilment of some important engagements, she will make appearances at Berlin and Amsterdam. London will be visited late in January, and a tour of the United Kingdom will occupy her till March, when she sails for South Africa, where a four months' tour will be entered on. She expects to return to Australia in two and a half years' time. That is, if she can so arrange i't.

A programme of chamber music, In which the players were -hidden from the audience, was a decided novelty so far as Sydney is concerned, at the Austral String Quartet's concert (says the "Sydney Daily Telegraph"). The innovation, like man; things tbat are new, crept its way into favour doubtfully. It has much to recommend it, but there is something to be said on the other side also. The effect of shutting off the players from sight, and turning down the lights, was to render the listener more sensible to external impressions. Thus when a late-comer made his way heavily up the steps, or someone outside indulged in passing comments on things in general, or it appi ared to become necessary to move furniture about, the sounds could not fail to distract those who sat nearest the door. Hence for such a drastic change in the methods of concert-giving, it is necessary to have complete silence. This was certainly not secured on this occasion—at all events, at the beginning of the concert. The turning-down of the lights, indeed, seemed for the first five minutes at least to act as a direct incentive to people in the hall or outside it to keep on talking. As the novelty wore off, the audience settled down to the new conditions without difficulty. -Some admirable programme notes by Mr. A. Tj. Kelly could not be read, however, in the darkness. The screen was connected with curtains at either side of the platform, with the result that the sound was to some extent interfered with. This was not so noticeable in the instrumental music, but the first two vocal solos of Madame Grace Miller Ward were perceptibly affected, so far as tone was concerned, and in the second part of the programme, when the singer appeared without the screen, the improvement was evident.

Giving a recital in Queen's Hall, London, last month, Paderewski again impressed his audience, the " Telegraph" states, by his dominating personality and transcendent intellectual gifts. He played amongst other works Schumann's F Minor Sonata, Beethoven's Sonata in D minor and a Chopin group—two Noc-turnes—-the ones in F and F sharps—the Ballade in A flat, two studies in A flat and F minor, a Mazurka, the Polonaise in A major, i