THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

GOSSIP OF THE PLATFORM. FROM FAB AND NEAR. - (By OKPHEUS.) -," Mr. Harison. Cook, of Wellington, is at present in Wanganui producing "Tlie Pirates of: Penzance." Miss :Mina Caldow has been engaged to sing the contralto sojos in "The Messiah", at Wellington on Dcember 14. The Hutt Choral-Society is at present rehearsing."A Tale of Old/Japan," which will be performed-in the first week in October. . , For its third concert.of-the present season the "Christchurch Musical, Society will sing,' Coleridge -Taylor's" "A Tale of Old Japan." '.;! U . Mr. J. Hadland, of (Jreymouth, rnll be! tEe tenor soloist...inv the '.Christchurch Musical.' Society's production of "The Golden Legend," and Mr. C. H. Clarkson the baritone soloist. Miss Alma Clegg, who has been selected to sing the pa.rt ex "Miiniehaha" in "Hiawatha" at Wellington, is said to be something of a discovery. She is very young,, but possesses a pure soprano voice" with plenty of power, and a fine Stage presence and personality. I understand that at the final performance of "Hiawatha" by the Royal Wellington Choral Union on November 9, two representatives of committee for each of the choral societies throughout the Dominion will be present. In these days, when so many of our musicians am experiencing difficulty in keeping the wolf from the door, it is pleasing to hear of the success of a young Aucldander in Sydney. Mr. Maurice Gilman left Auckland some two years ago, on the chance of procuring engagements in Australia. He soon managed to find his feet, and has. just concluded a twelve months' engagement band of Romano's Cabaret. Now

he has joined Will Prior's band at the new State Theatre in Sydney as first saxophone, at a salary" of £20 a week k Mr. Gilman is only 24 years old, and plays the flute and the saxophone, having, .received, .his musical...education ..in Auckland. . ;

V The cast for the Royal Wellington Choral Union's full production of "Hiawatha," which is being staged during the first week in. November,, is now complete. It is as Mr. H. Barry Coney; Hiawatha (first part), Mr. Ernest Short; Nokomis, Madame Winnie Fraser; Chibiabos, Mr. Hubert Carter; "Spring," Miss Christina Ormiston; lagoo, Mr. Edwin Dennis; Pau-puk-k*e-wis, Mr. Joe Knovvsley; The Black Priest, Mr. Hubert Carter; The Medicine Man, Mi\ Harison Cook; Minneliaha, Miss Alma Clegg; "Famine," Mrs. Ellison Porter; "Fever," Mr. G. M. Murch; Os-ke-non-ton, Mr. J. N. Duncan.

Nothing has been Cone so far in regard to the abolishment of tho amusement tax on amateur musical societies. I dislike harping on an old subject, but the constant dripping of water is said to wear away even the hardest stone. This tax, a survival of the wartime period, still persists, even though it is over ten years since the cessation of hostilities, and places a small, but {in my opinion) utterly unjustifiable, burden on a number of organisations which are finding it difficult to k.eep good music alive in the Dominion. It seems that our members of Parliament are not interested in such trifling matters as the encouragement of the arts. We should be told, no doubt, if inquiries were made, that there is too much important wbrk to be got through already without the time of Parliament being wasted on small fish like our musical societies. Yet the members find themselves able to spend the best part of a day in discussing, with all the petty rancour o the nursery, a point of privilege which would be settled in five minutes with the exercise of a little humility and re,straint. And they can waste the golden hours exchanging repartee which. lacks both taste and humour and which would bring discredit to a gathering of schoolboys. But when it comes to giving a little much-needed encouragement to national music, we find them busy. Rossini's "Stabat Mater," which is to be one of the works performed at the Choral Society's next concert, is among the highest expressions of religious emotion in the whole range of art. A Work of this sort must move even those who are temperamentally out of the spirit, which informs it to a certain measure of appreciation. Heine, the great German poet, who was not a Christian, was impelled by the sincerity and purity Oi feeling and expression of the 1 "Stabat Mater" to write an essay upon it. Eossini, beginning life as a devout Catholic, became more worldly as he met with success after success. Later on, when the laurels of the world iad laid on Ms head had withered a ittle, when.he became tired arid disillusioned, he drifted .back to the fold. The. "Stabat. Mater" was : the outward and invisible sign, as Heine says, that "he ihad again'abandoned the mundane music; of operas to carry - himself . back in;dreams to^.the Catholic recollections of youth—to the days when he sang, as a child in the choir of the Bologna Cathedrali and took part as an acolyte in the service of.the, Holy Mass." The '.'Stabat Mater" is thus, for alj its perfection as an expression of Christian art, a work of extreme sophistication. Heine says elsewhere: "The true, character of Christian art does not reside in thinness and plainness of the body, but in a certain efferveseeiice of the soul which neither the musician nor_ the. painter can appropriate to himself either by baptism or by study; and in this respect I find in the 'Stabat a--noi" truly.' Christian character than in ( the -'St. 1 , ".-. 1' of Me? eirfsohn." • r