THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

GOSSIP OF THE PLATFORM. FROM FAR AND NEAR. (Bv ORl'HKl>.)

Tt is tlii« intent inn of Mr. William Walters, the well-known baritone, to take up his residence in Wellington.

T understand that the Koyal Wellington (Ik,r.il I'rnun intend to give their rii a perioral ovorhaul at the annual gonoral meeting tlii -* month. lialph <iiea\es, the English c »im writer, has set. to mu«ic Belloo's beautiful little poem. "Lady. When Your Lovely Head." It i? published by the Oxford University Pre?-. "Mendelssohn's "Elijah" is the work selected by the Christohuroli Harmonic Society for its first concert of the present, sen-on. This will be Mr. Victor Peters' (inn I appearance before he leaves for England.

The Christehurch Musical Society begun rehearsals last week under fhe confluctorsbip of Mr. W. H. Dixon, who recently arrived from England. Elgar's "Caractacus" is the work to be performed. Mr. lolui Bishop, conductor of the J?oval Wellington Choral T'nion, began A ret est of his chorus on Friday, February I. He expected to have finished with the 270 voices within about a week of that date.

Mr. Victor Peters, conductor of the Christchurch Harmonic Society, intends to leave for Kngland in May to further his musical studies. lie experts to be away some time, and during his absence Madame Josephine Ottlee will conduct the orchestra.

"Ramon Novarro, the darling of the •Bon Hnr' film, is to give poor old opera b tonic by condescending to sing in "rosea,'" says "Musical Opinion." "He is welcome: but Covent Garden will accept, him on his merits and not on the .American newspaper headlines, of which the following are two examples: 'In the footsteps of Caruso.' and "The screen star will he a sensation on the operatic stage.' He will be handsome, we are told; yet npera is not waiting to be taught anything in the way of producing handsome men and women, not even by the film world. What, opera really wants from the film world is ideas, organisation, and —cash. Otherwise it knows how to look after itself, and will take what it wants."

Ernest P.loch. a Jew, has won the ,"000 dollar prize offered by "Musical America," with his Epic Rhapsody,

"America." The work depicts the historical development of the U.S.A., and as the composer has scattered "stage directions" and comments liberally over the score, an American critic is able to describe it thus:—The first section tells fit the Soil, the Indians, then of old England, the Call of America, the passage, hardships, the landing, the forebodings and the faith in the future ("Old Hundred"). The second describes the mourning of the nation at the close of the Civil War. The third, to depict '"the present," is very jazzy and "blue" at the start. There are anvils, steel plates and an automobile horn to picture the turmoil of the period. "Material 'prosperity' —Speed—Noise—'Man Slave nf the Machines,'" writes the composer at the foot of the page. Note that Bloch the idealist quotes "prosperity." After a long passage of this increasing violence, during which "America's Call of Distress" is heard, there comes "the inevitable collapse." Bloch canno£ believe that such materialism can reign always. The descendant of a race of prophets looks to the future and speaks, again After Whitman: "Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!"

A writer in the "Musical Times" comments on the fact that the gramophone is taken so much for granted nowadays that the rapidity of its development ie sometimes overlooked. He quotes a passage from the "Musical Times" of November, 1887: —"That modern miracle worker. Mr. Edison, i« 'at it again.' Having got the electric light out of hand, his restless inventiveness has taken up once more with what most of ti« had come to regard as a toy—the phonograpfi. A few years ago we were all talking about the phonograph. They had one, of course, at the Crystal J'alace, and there eminent singers, and others, were wont to warble into it, afterwards grinding from the interior rounds supposed to be a reproduction of their own sweet voices. . . . But what of developments that may arise? Will singers ami instrumentalists «ing and play into the 'receiver' and scatter examples of their skill all over the globe to order? Will Rubinstein or little Hofmann make a tour of the world by phonogram, sitting quietly at home preparing new specimens, while agents travel about displaying them?" That was written 40 yean ago. What would the writer say if he were alive to-dayl

Mr. Kdgar Wallace paused in the middle of pouring out his flood of "shockers" the other day in order to dash off an article explaining "Why I never go to Concert*." "I can git in a trance while a military band play's Tchaikovsky's 1812, or the overture to "Lohengrin,'" he wrote, "because I know that music, and love it. But I never go to concerts, because they play things which are unknown to me, anrl which, in consequence, bore me to death." Obviously the opinions of Mr. Wallace, on the subject of what is music and what isn't, are not likely to be as valuable as his views on safe breaking, except for the fact that they seem to be shared by a great many other people. Tt is no doubt this consideration alone which has induced Mr. Edwin Kvans, editor of "The Dominant," to answer Mr. Wallace. "There are very many ardent music-lovers who studiously avoid all concerts at which they are likely to hear something unfamiliar. Tt is not." says Mr. Kvans. "in being of their company that Mr. Wallace is abnormal. Jt is in his marvellous precocity. Surely he must have been the most remarkable wonder-child the world has ever seen, since he came into 't fully acquainted with such works as and the '1812.' He does X ♦?* ? th '* apr " ific Haim - He leaves tafiw J*" Had therp b * time w»«XLc2? T' which n ™ hold •»>«>ouWhtA bram 80 fine, J r Poked **wCT th£ e a l° ided the logical «te,3L known to him, §£**"- bnt'wtlraSS ° 0W We hi '» nce4 if £ *o«ld presentlv ' - d beard th«n.» ne w «* to ail j !