WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 141, 16 June 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

WORLD OF MUSIC.

PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

(By ORPHEUS.)

Uie Royal Christchurch Musical Society will probably include Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Night" and Gade's '"Erl King's Daughter" in the programme for its second concert of the season.

Mr. Christopher Smith has arranged a Sullivan programme for the Municipal Band concert on the 27th inst. Among other items will be a selection from "Princess Ida."

The Royal Wellington Choral Union began rehearsals of Berlioz's "Faust" on June 5. Ihe committee of the Union is considering some proposals regarding new works made by Mr. Bishop the new conductor, and the result will probably be the performance, sooner or later, of several entirely new modern works which have not been heard before in the Southern Hemisphere. i

The full cast for the Dunedin Civic Choir s production of "Tannhauser" on July 17, under Mr. Paget Gale's conductorship, is as follows:—Elizabeth, Madame Winnie Fraser; Venus, Miss Molhe Vickers; Tannhauser, Mr. John Hadland (of Greymoutli); Reirimar, Mr. H. Walker; Heinrich, Mr. Rouse; Biterolf, Mr. B. Rawlinson; Walther, Mr. R. Mitchell; Wolfgram, Mr. A. Lungley: Herman, Mr. John Clarke. *

The thanks of Auckland musicians are due to Mr. L. A. Eady for the splendid musical library he has presented to the city, which was opened last Tuesday. It should prove of imaluable use to those who are interested in music. We offer our congratulations to Mr. Eady, in addition .to those of the general public, on a particularly useful piece of service to the cultural interests of the people of this city.

„ tl,e Conclusion of the Wellington Elijah" concert Mr. Fraser Gange congratulated the chorous upon its improvement since his last visit. He remarked later upon the particular excellence of the sopranos, and told a member of the Choral Union that he had never heard

finer soprano singing anywhere. This is most gratifying reading for members of musical societies and for New Zealanders in general. It is beginning to appear that we are not quite as pre-eminent at ■Rugby football as we had imagined, but at last our choral societies run neck and neck with the rest of the world.

"Musical Opinion" commends the wisdom of the Columbia Gramophone Company in widening the scope of their Schubert Centenary competition. The prizes were originally offered for two movements to complete the "Unfinished" Symphony, but, as this journal points out, there was little to recommend the idea. "In effect the competitors were required to take up the symphony, from the point where Schubert left off. They were to do what Schubert had left undone. They were to do it as Schubert would have done it. This was to ignore the fact that Schubert, had he wished to complete the "Unfinished," had several years of life in which to do it. Instead, he turned to other writing, and even began and completed another symphony. It also ignored the probability that anything like a satisfactory completion of the symphony by a mind working a hundred years after Schubert was past hoping for. Nothing less than a reincarnation of Schubert could achieve that. Miracles happen, but not that sort of miracle." The same writer, in referring to the comparative infertility of musical competitions, mentions a notable exception—"Cavalleria Rusticana," which was brought to light in this way.

Sir Henry Hadow, lecturing on Schubert and Beethoven the other day, said thai Goethe and Schiller were one day discussing the fact that Germans were always quarrelling with each other as to who was the greater. "It would be very much better," said Goethe, "if they thanked God for both of us." That is the attitude which should be adopted in regard to the two great composers (says the "Musical Times"). Schubert wrote at a tremendous rate. It is, of course, well known that one of his most famous songs, "Hark, Hark the Lark!" was written in a restaurant on the back of a menu, and in the same evening he wrote "Who is Sylvia?" He was the clairvoyant of music, as Keats was the clairvoyant of poetry. The lecturer suggested that the centenary enthusiasts who are advocating that the "Unfinished" Symphony should be finished this year, would do better to turn their attention to the poetry of "Rosamunde," which so ill-fits the music Schubert wrote for it. He particularly appealed to those who do not yet appreciate the great significance of Beethoven's music, and especially that of his third period, to go on studying. They would be rewarded later on with a great insight into this most magnificent music which had yet been given to the! worlfr ...... r J