SINGERS AND PLAYERS

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 14

SINGERS AND PLAYERS

■ * Before leaving Sydney for New Zealand Mr John McCormack, the tenor, made some admissions as to the gold he was taking away with him in exchange for the "notes issued." The gross takings of the eighteen concerts in Sydney amounted to £10,000: those in Melourne, £7,000; Adelaide, £3,000; and Brisbane, £2,000. Altogether the tour stands as the most successful recorded in Australia.

Botmbet, an eighteenth century writer, says: "I saw in Brescia, in 1790, a man, of all Italy perhaps the most affected by music. He passed life life in hearing it; wben it pleased him, he slipped off hie shoes without being aware of it; and if the pathetic was carried to its height, he was accustomed to throw them over his head upon the spectators." Mme. Slapoffski, the operatic soprano, who has achieved much good work in the colonies, has been engaged by Sir Frederick Cowen to create the soprano roles in two of his new compositions, which are to be performed in '■ England early this year. | "Many people still avoid music because they themselves do not play or sing. As well might they avoid tlie theatre because they are not actors, or books because they are not authors. There is nothing mys-. terious about music. It is a noise, regu- . lated aud ordered by a composer. Take i a nocturne of Chopin. It presents a picture of mood. Perhaps yc*a have seen a dancer dance to its rhythm, pensive, tragic, dreamy, or exalted. That was her reading. But form your own by means of reverie."—"T. P.'s Weekly."

Have you ever studied the fascinating | subject "of music and its effect upon j animals? Madame Emmy Destinn. says the "Daily News," sang in the presence j of Hagenbeck's lions, lent for the pur- j pose of a film recording Madame De.stinn's acting. As soon as'she began to sing, the lions began, disrespectfully, to ' growl. "I noticed," said Madame Destinn, , I"tbat as soon as I began to emphasise ' my notes my lion started to growl. You can guess I quickly cut it out." Fol-1 lowing this up, someone writes to the ~ "Daily Express" to say that after read- ] ' ing about Madame Destinn he went to ' . | the Zoo to see if he could do any good. J He records his experiences as follows:— i "Madame Destinn had ten wild lions for l an audience, and I had only two, but . anyway, I'll bet my lions were wilder i than hers when 1 Had finished with them. ' One of them was so angry that it got up - in the middle of the second verse and 3 went over to the other side oi the cage -to complain to the keeper. The other : one called aloud for Ted-hot bars. Hon- , estly, in case you meet an escaped lion " some dark night, I would not advise f you to put too much trust in this 'music " soothes the savage beast' theory. Your • only chance is to ask the lion politely * if it happens to have ■ a thorn in its - foot. Androcles! If so. well and good. ? Forward, little Androc-les! But if there " is no thorn just remember that lions don't like music'with their meals, and

7 go quietly. Really music is wasted on' ' the Zoo." But this is nothing after all— " a lady in California, a contemporary - remarks' making experiments t With the aid" iter gramophone upon *" insects: "Worms, it seems, enjoyed it, "" wriggling vigorously to express their s approval. Bees were frightened into fits, " wasps were paralysed, the tarantula fell ; - into a stupor, while 'Home, Sweet 0 Home,' thrice repeated, or two or three *" bars of ragtime, was death to the Cali--5 ifornian beetle." Says "Hearth and - Home": "This should open a new field = of utility for the phonograph, and we c may presently sec it aguring in the gara dening catalogues as a champion insectkiller. As a wasp-paralyser, too, it y might be useful at summer afternoon " teas in the country."

Mile. Antonia Doloree. who announced some weeks after her return to London

from the Cape that she intended making a summer tour of New Zealand this year, reaching Sydney'in time to open at or after Easter, has booked her passage by the German liner Zieten, and doubt-

less sailed with her friend, Mile. Vaudour, on December 22, from Southampton. Mile. Dolores writes that she is in splendid health, and in fuller voice than she has been for years. She does not propose to stay in Sydney, but without

delay will sail for Auckland, so as to tour the Dominion before the summer is over. Her return here will prove one of the great events of the coining concert season.

Within the little space of twelve I months (says the "Dominion" critic, who writes under the norn de plume "Treble Clef) Wellington has seen some interesting changes in matters musical and those who guide them, and has had the good fortune to hear some artists of world-fame. Three years ago, if anyone j were asked who were the leaders of | music in Wellington they would have replied without any hesitation Messrs. Maughan Barn eft and Mr. Robert Parker. The same question could not so easily be disposed of at present. Mr. Barnett has been established in Auckland for nine months, and Mr. Parker has practically retired from the public eye, though still in charge at St. Paul's, and yet baton-bearer to the Liedertafel. Out in the bigger (local) world of music we have secured a very fine artist and cultured musician in Mr. Bernard Pat*e as city organist. He is that rarity among musicians—aii organist with a temperament, and gifted with the skill to make it palpitate through his work. He has a fine command of the instrument, and the grace of perfect understanding is in him. Mr. Page is also a conductor 5 , and I marvel that his services have not been snapped up by one or other of the musical bodies of the city. The conduc-tors-hip of the Royal Choral Society fell to Mr. Christian Hellemann, of Sydney, who has given his committee every satisfaction.

"People should not imagine that music was no good but as music," said Sir Frederick Bridge recently. "The study of music trained the intellect and reacted upon every other study the pupil took up. He would back a music boy, properly trained, against an ordinary boy who had spent all his time in other subjects, such as Latin and Greek, and had not studied music. The study of music refined the pupils to begin'with; it made them think, it made them alert and quick, and it gave them a little lightness of heart, and that was a good deal."

Music was an integral part of the Egyptian temple ritual from the most Temote times. The favourite .instrument used by the priests was the harp, which was probably invented in Egypt. It reached a point of development and beautry which 'has rarely been equalled. The finest harps were taller tban a man; they had' many strings, and were imost beautifully ornamented,, answering "in the bouses of Egyptian grandes to the splendid grand pianoß which adorn our I .modern xeaddencee,""