THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

DIAPASONS AND ECHOES.

FROM PAH AMD NEAR.

(By ORPHEUS.)

The Mareo Symphony Orchestra will present it 3 first concert of tlie 1934 season on Thursday evening, March 22, in the Town Hall. Included in the programme will be Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, in which Mr. Vincent Aspey will play the solo violin.

The work chosen to be broadcast by IYA at 2 p.m. to-monow is Grieg's I'iano Concerto in A ]\Linor, played by Ignaz Friedmann, with orchestra conducted by Pliillipe Gaubert. This beautiful work is always a great favourite with concert audiences wherever it is played.

Respighi's "Concerto a Cinqu©" for violin, oboe, trombone, contrabass and piano was given its first performance at the opening concert of the Milan season at the Teatro del Popolo recently. It was received enthusiastically by the public, according to a notice in the "Corriere della Sera."

Winifred Wagner is reported in the "Vossische Zeitung" as having entrusted the performance of her husband Siegfried's posthumous work, "Der Heldenkonig," to Alexander Spring, general manager of the municipal theatres in Cologne. The premiere is set down for the first half of the coming season.

A huge new tlicatre, with a probable capacity of from 15,000 to 20,000, will ■be built in Koine in the. near future for the multiple purpose of accommodating vast mass meetings, spectacular "monster"- opera productions and the Augusteo Orchestra, which will be dislodged when the Mausoleum of Augustus is restored for the 1037 bimillennium.

June 21 last year marked the twentyfifth anniversary of the death of the great Russian composer Eimsky-Korsa-koff. Commenting upon this, Olin Downes, a well-known American critic, says: "Of all the Kussian 'Five,' in point of aesthetic style and technical craftsmanship, it is liimsky-Korsakoff who stands pre-eminent and exerts perhaps the most useful, if not the most original, influence. A supreme artist, whose work will live long after him; perpetuaing his deep sense of beauty, hie love of the Kussian land and people, his simple devotion to'his task."

Under the direction of Mr. Walter Damroscli, a.series of concerts is being given in New York for the benefit of the Musicians' Emergency Fund. Some idea of how greatly musicians in America have been adversely affected there may be gleaned from the statement made by Mr. Damrosch that "the need of raising funds for musicians in need is particularly acute this season, since many musicians of the highest class, who have saved enough to get along on their reserves until recently, have now been forced to apply to the Musicians' Emergency Kund for - help."

In a recent issue of "La Guide Musicale," a French critic, G. Garhot, launched an attack against the venerable "do-re-mi-fa" system of naming the notes of the scale. There is no reason, he declares, for retaining syllables chosen three centuries ago by Guido d'Arezzo. Only the "la," he says, is favourable to the emission of an open tone from a relaxed throat, and the terminology is chiefly used in the solfege system for developing accuracy of reading and for training singers. Moreover, where flats and sharps occur, there is no way of voicing them save through clumsy circumlocutions that cannot be sung swiftly.

The professional musician has been hit hardly by tho economic situation, but already there are indications that more employment may be offering in the near future. Only the other day there appeared in the "wanted" columns of a New Zealand paper an inquiry for the services of a conductor to train a girls' band. The advertisement stated incidentally that preference would' be given to one who was used to gardening, and also that he would have to be a good worker. Whether this referred to his musical or his horticultural capabilities is not quite clear. It has been suggested that the first selections to be practised would be "Come into the Garden, Maud," and "Tip-toe Through the Tulips With Me." •

The composer of that mournful yet tuneful ballad, "The' Prisoner's Song," which has been a world rage in recent years, died during November in New York. It was tlie crowning achievement of an English musician, Guy Massey, a native of Liverpool, who was known in London soon after the war. Later he led a precarious existence in America as a tramp, violinist and railway worker. He was convicted and sent to Sing Sing gaol, where he obtained permission to, wed a girl who had befriended him. After the marriage in the prison chapel Massey conceived the song that expressed his remorse and the longing he felt for his 'wife's company. He sent it to her, and the script eventually got into the hands of a fellow musician of Massey, and was published. It was an instant success. After the composer had served six months in gaol his wife, with royaltes received through the sale of the song, had the case reopened. Fresli evidence was- produced, and it was clearly proved that Massey was innocent of the crime which had caused his arrest. Within a few weeks of his release he died, and the girl who I married him, now is reaping a fortune from the song he wrote for her.

"We are navigating the first shallows of a sterile music season," writes the Berlin correspondent of the "New York Times." "Not even the most optimistic pretend that Berlin has much to look forward to this coming winter of anxious uncertainty and sinister forebodement. The October concert schedule —usually of heroic dispensation—contrasts abjectly with the one now unfolding in New York. I understand that over there 13 recitals are booked for the Town Hall alone. Yet Berlin's five concert halls offer together only 16 events for the entire month, and of these not more than 10 can with the best will in the world be called, important. There have been further cancellations by prominent foreign musicians since my last communication —among them, as I then prophesied, the much-worshipped Alfred Cortot. Poor Furtwangler has been tearing out his yellow hair in his despairing efforts tb bag a few prominent non-Germans for his Philharmonic evenings. Outside of Walter Gieseking, - Lotte Lehinann and Wilhelm Backhaus I his list of soloists reads about as dis- ! couragingly as the programmes hehas 1 compiled. For all of which the Nazis have only themselves, their 'Aryan para--1 graphs' and their pernicious 'cultural' [ doctrine to thank."