ROYAL MUSICAL SOCIETY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20622, 11 August 1932, Page 6

ROYAL MUSICAL SOCIETY.

ELGAR'S "CARACTACUS." Elgar, throughout his many years of music-making, has nowhere sounded so strongly national a note as that heard in his best-known cantata "Caractacus." The story of the British chieftain's fruitless struggle against the Eoman invasion is told with Elgar's usual brilliant constructive power and seemingly endless gift of melody. The performance by the Eoyal Christchurch Musical Society under the deputy-con-ductor, Mr T. Andrews, at the Municipal Concert Hall last evening, was notable for a sound and capable reading of a difficult score. Although tho musical director, Mr W. H. Dixon, was unfortunately absent through illness, jus work and musicianly preparation with the chorus and orchestra enabled his deputy to carry on with considerable skill and reliance. Mrs Cam Tait, who took the soprano role of Caractacus's daughter Eigen, has a voice of agreeably pure and round quality, and her effortless singing of the solo in Scene 3, and, later, a duet with Mr Harold Prescott, was warmly admired. Mr Prescott has an attractive tenor voice, which though not of great volume, is always well controlled and he sang the part of Orbin with a sure sense of style. Mr W. Kershaw was most impressive as the British chieftain, Caractacus; his splendid singing of the opening solo, "Watchmen, Alert I" was equalled only in tho. Lament with chorus, which ranks as the composer's finest section of the whole work. Mr T. D. Williams, as the Arch-Druid, sang with appropriate feeling for his dignified role. The Invocation scene was expressively sung throughout. The four principals sang with great assurance the final quartet. Elgar ask.s a great deal of his orchestral players, and mention must be made of last night's performance under the lead of Mr Arthur Gordon. The introduction to IScene 3, and the whole of Scene 5, descriptive of the Severn, were sympathetically done. The chorus seemed happiest in the vigorous opening, the graceful "Come! Beneath our Woodland Bowers," and the jingoistic finale, "And hymn the praise of Britain, like brothers, hand in hand."