THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

DIAPASONS AND ECHOES. FROM FAR AND NEAR. (By ORPHEUS.) COMING CONCERTS. LEWIS EADY HALL. September 7.—Vincent Aspey Recital , September 12.—Paul Vlnogradoff Recital. September IS.—Auckland Chamber Music Society, third concert. TOWN HALL. September 14.—Bohemian Orchestra, second concert. , The _ Royal Wellington Clioral Union . will give its annual "Messiah" concert on December G. From Canada: "What is jazz?" asks a correspondent. We should describe it as the rowdyments of music.—"Mon- ; treal Star." The Auckland Choral Society's performance of "Messiah," which is usually given on a Thursday evening, will, this year, take place on Tuesday evening, December 19. Two young' Auckland pianists, Miss Cherry Anderson and Miss Theo. Halpin, are to give a pianoforte recital on October 4 in the Lewis Eady Hall. The programme, will include, amongst other works, the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor. The studio orchestra at IYA will, in future, provide an accompaniment to at least one song each evening it perc forms at the station. This should prove a welcome innovation, providing as it will, variety in tone colour, which cannot be supplied by a plain piano accompaniment. Shanghai has a municipal orchestra of sixty performers. The orchestra was established teu years ago, and it gives two concerts a week all the year round, many of them being broadcast. In the summer the concerts take place in the public parka. The audience is composed equally of foreigners and Chinese. It is the intention of the Auckland Choral Society to perform Rossini's "Moses in Egypt"" next year, and, to this end, rehearsals are being held now. Ono of the difficulties of giving works of this class is the shortage of vocal scores. In these circumstances the society would welcome the loan of copies of this work from any old choralists who happen to possess them.

Tha Bohemian Orchestra will give its second concert of the season on September 14. The principal works to be performed will be Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony," Weber's "Concertstuck," in which Mr. Eric Waters will be the solo pianist," the "Welsh Rhapsody" (German), and several of Elgar's "Enigma Variations." Schubert's beautiful "Unfinished" Symphony is to be given by the Municipal Band at its concert in the Town Hall to-morrow night. Other major works eet down for performance are Saint-Saens' "Algcrienne" Suite and Verdi's "Nebuchadnezzar." Gladys Stormont, mezzo-soprano, and Robert Simmers, baritone, will be the assisting vocalists. "The Londonderry Air," "John Peel," "Drink to Me Only," "Auld Lang Syne," "The Old Hundredth"—these are tunes that require no dressing of harmony; somehow they have stood the test of time and will probably last as long as music lasts. In passing, ie it not high timo that further dressing of the "Londonderry Air" were made a criminal offence? (From an article, "Popular Music," by F. E. Baker, in "Music and Letters"). Private advices from Wellington state that the "operatic" evening, presented by the Royal Wellington Choral Union recently, was both a financial and artistic success. The concert revealed that Wellington possesses, some most promising singers. Miss Alma Clegg, a young soprano, was said to be absolutely brilliant, and'certainly has a great future before her. Other "discoveries" were Mr. Roy Trewern, a very fine tenor, and Mr. R. J. Laurenson, a baritone, who hails from the South Island. An interesting broadcast trom station IYA will be made on the 'evening of September 15, when Mr. Paul Vinogradoff, the well-known Russian pianist, will play Bethoven's piano concerto, No. 3, in C minor. The orchestral part will be supplied by a second piano in combination with a quintet of strings. This adaptation of the entire orchestral parts (Tutti and accompaniment) is one that was made by Franz Liszt, at Weimar in July, 1881; and lias the advantages and facilities of the ensemble being turned to account in reproducing, as far as possible, the orchestral effects. Mueio throughout Prussia is to bo controlled in future by a supervising committee. Four well-known German musicians, headed by Her'r Wilhelm Furtwangler, recently appointed chief conductor of the State Opera in Berlin, will bo virtual "custodians" of the musical life of the State, comprising two-thirds of the Reich. Not only Gov-ernment-subsidised hiusic will be under their control, but they will pass upon all concert programmes and consult and advise the various musical associations. Compositions of foreigners will not be proscribed, but the State direction of musical life will intensify the preferential treatment accorded German artists, with the purpose of providing work for all competent German musicians. A totally different state of affairs exists in the Dominion of New Zealand. There, the Government, iffstead of subsidising music, diecouragee the cultivation of the art by means of an imposition termed an "amusement" tax.

The Christchurch Musical Society will give "Israel in Egypt" on September 5.

Beethoven's great Ninth Symphony was given ite tenth annual performance on July 6by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the Stadium, an open-air rendition. The conductor was Willem van Hoogstraten; the soloists were: Nina Morgana (soprano), Sophia Breslau (contralto), Paul AHhouse (tenor), and Frederic Baer (baritone). Althouse may be remembered as the tenor who came here several years ago with that fine bass, Arthur Middleton. who passed on about twelve months ago.

Francesco Bergcr, the well-known composer and teacher of the pianoforte, who published in 1931 a collection of papers with the title "97—Not Out," did not quite realise his cherished ambition to live just 100 years. Dying on April 25, he missed the period by a year and 46 days. When he was born (June 10, 1834) Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner and Verdi were all young men between 21 and 25j Beethoven, Schubert and Weber had died within the past six or eight years; Brahms was twelve months old; Grieg was not to be born for another nine years.

It has been bruited abroad by some persons, among them pessimistic music dealers, that the piano, like the opera, is dead; that it has disappeared as a popular musical instrument; that it has been replaced in the public esteem by orchestral and other concerts outside the home, and by radio and records within it. One thing is true: The piano has definitely lost its position as the most prominent piece of parlour furniture, which is highly desirable. It has also lost ground as a favourite instrument of torture for children forced to drum on the keys, by methods happily growing obsolete, when they should, have been outdoors, getting dirty. Young people are no longer ordered by parents to "take piano" as a parlour trick— "accomplishment." And, thanks to the radio, people in the farthest corners of the country are listening to masters of piano-playing. The writer does not believe that the piano is gone, or dying either. He is certain that this instrument has an immense future before it, a future that will be richer, musically speaking, than the past of the most popular and useful of all musical instruments. (Olin Downes, in the "New York Times.")

The new "Christian Science Hymnal," which contains 400 hymns and a supplement of another 29, has been highly praised by the musical critics in England. The "Musical Times" says, inter alia: "The editore are not named, but it is evident that a vast amount of expert work has been done to compile a collection of hymns not only suitable to the needs of the particular denomination, but of considerable value, literary, musical and devotional, to all who are interested in Christian hymnology. Those for whose use the book is intended, an foil who are interested, will be grateful to the compilers for having included so many of the old and muchloved hymns and tunes. They will be grateful, also, to find hymns of more recent (late, and many tunes of great beauty, either to old worda or new, by some of the most distinguished musicians of our time—Hubert Parry, Vaughan ' Williams, Walford Davies, Hugh Allen and others. The older classics are represented by Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and by English composers such. as Jeremiah Clark and Orlando Gibbons. Additional new tunes have been especially written by Norman Greenwood, O'Connor Morris, ThalbenBall, Percy Whitlock and Walter Young. Some of these are of quite remarkable beauty."