SONG RECITAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 153, 30 June 1944, Page 2

SONG RECITAL

An interesting recital was given in the Ha V last evening when -iiaigaret Gerrand, a vounu Auckland h,Tm-f r h- a hi d con ?P°?er, whose work hS anri highly praised by visiting musicians and examiners, made her first public appearance, which, in an exacting «r£ gramme, covered a wide range, including works by Handel, Scarlatti and Haydn lieder by Schumann, Franz, Wolf and Schubert, and operatic excerpts by Meyerbeer and Mozart. The young sineer displayed a pleasing light lyricfoprano fluent tonal emission and a nice feeling for appropriate expression. in her head notes, however, the young singer had a slight tendency to depart from true pitch. The audience was particularly charmed by Miss Gerrand's own tuneful setting of four poems by Robert Bridges, Longfellow, Dorothy Dickinson and an Indian poet. These revealed the young musician as a composer with, exceptional gifts of musical expression each song being a happy blending of words and music except that the setting of the Hindu Cradle Song was hardly in the Indian mode. The assisting instrumentalist, Mr. Felix Millar, violinist, was heard at his best in Haydn's Sonata No. 2 in D Major, and other lighter compositions. His playing of these was marked by a most agreeable breadth of tone and facile execution. Mr Allan Pow was very good in the accompaniments, contributing largely to the success of the evening.