THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

GOSSIP OF THE PLATFORM.

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

(By ORPHEUS.)

Mr. Harison Cook is at present in Blenheim, producing "The Country Girl."

The Palmereton North Choral Society intend putting on "Elijah" about the end of November.

The Levin Choral Society intends to perform the "Creation" on Monday, December 3.

Mr. John Prouse is to sing the baritone solos in "Elijah" at Palnierstoa North next month.

The Napier Choral Society has selected "Hiawatha" and "The Rebel Maid 1 for its first and second concetto of 1929.

Mies Mina Caldow has been engaged by the Dunedin Choral Society to sing the name part in Bizet's "Carmen" in November.

Miss Naomi Whalley will be the soprano soloist for the Ghristchureh Harmonic Society's performance of "The Messiah." on December 15.

Mr. Claude Tanner, the New Zealand 'eel List, who is due back from .London on November 20, intends opening his Dominion tour at Wellington on December 12.

"Tho Rebel Maid" is now being rehearsed by the New Plymouth Choral Society, and will be produced towards the end of November. The soprano soloist will be Miss Naomi Whalley.

Mr. John Bishop has been appointed musical director of the Nations! Art Gallery and Dominion Museum Pageant and Carnival, which is to be held in Wellington from November 20 to December 8, inclusive.

The soloists for the Choral Society's production of "Hinemoa" on November 1 will include Miss Alma McGruer, soprano; Mr. Barry Coney, baritone. The concert will be an all Maori one.

The soloists for "A Tale of Old Japan" on November 24 by the Royal Wellington Choral Union will be: Soprano, Miss Naomi Whalley; contralto, Mrs. Wilfred Andrews; tenor, Mr. Roy Hill; baritone, Mr. Len Barnes.

Mr. Ernest Short, the well-known baritone, who recently came from Nelson to Wellington to reside, left for London last week on a business visit to the Old Country. Mr. Short expects to be back in New Zealand in February.

In imitation of the many pipno playing contests now rife in America, the London "Daily Express" has organised a similar affair for the benefit of English pianists. The contest offers prizes and honours to efficient piano players from the age of eight years upwards.

The programme at the next Bohemian Orchestra concert will consist largely of Schubert numbers, aa the centenary occurs next month. The "Symphony in C Major" will be played, and it is just possible that the work which won the competition held this year by the Columbia Gramophone Company, in connection with the Schubert Centenary, will be available for performance.

The Royal Wellington Choral Union had. intended putting on Venghan Williams' "Sea Symphony" for its next concert, but owing to the difficulty- in fitting in extra rehearsals, and in view of the fact that the society is supplying the choral and orchestral music for the National Art Gallery Carnival, it has been decided to put on "A Tale of Old Japan" instead. "Tho Symphony" will be included in the 1929 programme.

Since the Students' Orchestra faded out of existence several years ago, music at the Auckland University has been for the most part confined to the Glet Club, the thirty or forty members of which still continue to meet once a week during the first and second terms. It is rather extraordinary that the orchestra has not been revived since the college moved to the new building. With such a lar»e attendance-roll there is certain to be a sufficient number of students who play instruments to provide at least the nucleus of an orchestra, and it seems probable that, one will be formed in the neax future.

"The time which separates us from Handel is greater than that which separates Handel from Monteverdi," says "The Dominant," "Yet one is struck with the fact that the music of Handel is much closer to. our music of to-day than it is to the music of Monteverdi. Music, in a sense, has not changed since the time of Handel; we are. still using his harmonic scheme and are building our pieces according, to his principles of construetion. It is aa though the great evolution had taken place precisely in the. period which separates Monteverdi from Handel; and that with Handel a. classic apogee had. been reached to which we shall always turn as to the golden era of our art."

The recently-formed Leys Institute Orchestra fills a gap in the local musical world which has been empty too long. Hitherto there have been few orchestras whieh have devoted themselves entirely to the instruction of young players. Even for a player with considerable experience in solo work, it requires some practice to be able to perform with an orchestra, and this new organisation provides a stepping-stone for those who wish to enter the Bohemian Orchestra or any of the others we have in our midst. Those who wish for practice of this sort would be well advised to- get in touch with the new society,, which at present has about seventy performing members, and meets once a week in the Leys Institute: HalL

Mr. H. Fairfax Jones, tho secretary of the British Federation of Musical Competition Festivals,, writing to an English magazine, says: "The object of a public adjudication should be to teach both the competitors and the njn-com-peting members of the audience. The marks should be a secondary consideration, for the first half-dozen competitors are nearly always so close together that the. order might be quite different if they were heard again a week later. It is the trying, not the winning, that matters. One of the principal benefits of musical competition festivals, has been that they have 8 o interested members of the audience that a large number of them have, taken up mnaic aa * direct result." _