I REMEMBER."

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14328, 13 April 1912, Page 7

I REMEMBER."

FIFTY YEARS OF Ml'SlC

FROM GERMANY TO NFAY ZEALAND.

Trained in a school of music. jHissessing personal memories of some of the most famous people in the ; !!insi'"il world, and having taught music lor many yea.rs, Mr 11. M. Lund has :« fund of interesting reminiscences bearing on the art. Mr Lund, who ) 1:) s iieen prominent in local circles lor a long time, and celebrates his musical jubilee shortly, has, at our request, put his reminiscences into the following shape:—With mixed feelings of pleasure and sadness I dive, at your wish, into the grey antiquity of ray early music lire, in my young days a was not the habit of the whole human raco to play the piano, as it is now, and only those giving distinct promise of talent were, after many pros and cons had lK.cn weighed, deemed worthy of entering the sanctuary of a musicstudio. As it happened. 1 sang, I whistled all band music, and oven '•composed original snatches, with the result that by a fatal consensus <>i neighbourly opinion my father was prevailed upuii to havo mo trained. 1 ' The music room o! my earliest teacher contained one real piano and about a dozen dummies, something like a raw Virgil Clavier, producing "a clatter iosembling the old -stylo of threshing in the bain. Jt was a cheap and useless method, ami I lived to see these wooden horrors cut im for use in the domestic hearth. Years after my arrival here 1 came across a flaming advertisement by a Dunedin "professor." in praise of this "latest Continental system" adopted by him. In due course came my music-school days with six, eight and ten hours daily practice, but after two years 1 was lured away by the personality and genius of Carl Tausig, who gave promise, had he lived, to outshine all his fellows. But, alas, his ways wero erratic and so wero my lessons; those I had were indeed hours to remember all one's life. At that timo tho very name of Franz Liszt hushed us still into awed silence, though ho had ceased to appear in public, but 1 was privileged to hear him frequently at his house, always grandiose, weird and fantastic, not infrequently bent more upon studied effect than 'unselfish interpretation. Already tho stars ot great rivals wero in tho ascendant. Uubinstein, rising at times to heights beyond dreams, looking as he sat at the piano like a storm-driven Dutch wind-mill, so wildly did he light with arms swooping down upon the luckless instrument from high above his lion's head; Hulow masterly, profound, rather cold and in evil moods harsh, and finally the incomparable Clara Schumann. poetic, and noble as a woman nnd as an artist. The friendship she extended to mo I treasure above all others. Ouu meinorablo day in a music room at Hamburg! T was rehearsing some Schumann songs .when there entered a sturdy, somewhat squat-built man listening and criticising keenly, finailly producing boiuo songs of his own. "ft turned out to be Johannes Brahms, the birth of many of whose now famous works it fell to my lot to witness. To him I owe the most delirious time of my life, where nothing mattered in this world, only music divine, waking or sleeping, for through liis introduction I entered the .fascinating circle of the Schumann 'family. .Schumann himself wa.s gono, the first to recognise the genius of Brahms, who became the most devoted ■unselfish friend of the widow. And round that eirclo were grouped tho Joachims, and Stockhausen, tho greatest concert singer of tlie age. As the most potent influences in acquiring what knowledge of music I possess, L regard not tho study of my own instrument under eminently able tuition, but the facilities then offered in even small German towns of hearing good music and joining chamber music parties, the practice of the latter of wonderful educative value; *iext in order, the chance of studying all tho best music by the use of circulating umsic i libraries—'which might well be established hero by an enterprising firm ' —but all these were overshadowed by tho inestimable boon of encouragement and suggestion derived from the companionship of the truly great artists ■named. Interest was intensified by the discussions over tho Wagner challenge and strife that had then divided. German musicians into two bitterly hostile camps. I Avas present- at tho first performance of "Tristan and Isolde," when little was needed to convert the Munich Opera House into a battlefield, so strongly were the passions roused. Among the great and happy days of my life T count also those spent in Paris with Stephen Holler and Manchester with Charles Halle". Landing in New- Zealand some 35 years ago my music was regarded with suspicion ; in the columns of "The Press" T was stigmatised as a faddist. For a short time I enjoyed some measure of fame owing to my habit of practising in the dark. T could then have played from memory for days. But when a lady gave an exhibition of her powers under a table cover I was soon snuffed out.