MUSICAL NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 85, 13 April 1929, Page 24

MUSICAL NOTES

Sims Ecovcs was once singing in Scot-, laud an arrangement of "Hail, Smiling Morn," in which a chorus echoed the soloist. When he declaimed, in his best manner, '/At whoso bright presence darkness flics away"—he heard the chorus, to his horror, sing in broadest Doric, "flees awa', flees aw.a\" Afterwards, on referring to tho incident, 'he,-was told by the conductor of tho choir "riot to worry about it. Just a little defect in your pronunciation Mr. '.Beeves'."

Writing recently the London correspondent of the "Post" remarks:—Musical New Zealanders will look forward with pleasuro to the year 1930, for Madame Florence Austral and her New Zealand-born husband, John Amadio, will visit the Dominion professionally. Madame Austral has a wonderful, voice, arid is a very fine singer, while Amadio is probably tho most eminent flautist,"' Together they have been appearing in London lately, with marked success. In December they, go to the United States, where Madame .Austral is under contract for the third successive -year, singing through tho States as far .as tho Pacific coast. Americans are tremendous admirers of the vocalist. ..Toward the end of next May sho will be back in London, and she will appear at least twico at Covent Garden in performances of "Valkyrie" and "Gotterdammerung," to be put on specially,for her. Tho Covent. Garden Opera Company were anxious to book her for the Wagner cycle of "The Ring," to bo given early iv May, but she cannot be back from America until the end of that month. -In all likoli-, hood the 1930 tour will embrace New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, and tho artists will bb accompanied by Mr. Powell. Arrangements have been made by Mr. E. J. Carroll, tho wellknown impresario. Music, Dr. Richard Strauss fears, has passed its zenith. Tho Austro-Germau composer of "Kosenkavalier" and "Salome," of, symphonic poems and countless liedcr, is not at all hopeful about tho future of musical composition. "The musical material has become exhausted in tho courso of centuries," ho thinks. "The great-classical masters have not left much' for the modernist •to do. Every art moves in curves. It improves until tho highest point is reached, then becomes decadent.. I fear' music has passed its zenith." 'Every time that Strauss conducts one of his j works he experiences tho sensation of wondering how he could write as hoi did. "Not that I regret what I bayo written. On the contrary, I am satisfied! I have tried at every stage'of my musical to work with the utmost care and to give the best there was in me. But 1 know ; that I could not write a 'Rosenkavalier' or a fSalome', to-day as I wrote them years ago. I' havo undergone a metamorphosis, that's 'i(U.'' Strauss does not recall just how ho came to, be a composer. "Ail that I remember is that I began to write musical the age, of six. Until my 16th year my father, himself a professor of music in. Munich, confined'my.musical ■education to the 1 great classics, especially to Mozart and Beethoven. My love and veneration for Mozart ' increases oven to-day. Only much later did I become: acquainted with. the. work of Wagner, Berlioz, and- Liszt, all threo of- whom have had a.decided influence upon my musical career. In fact, my earlier . orchestra compositions connect directly on to Liszt's symphonic poems.

I am very sorry to say, however, that I never met Wagner or Liszt personally. The greatest siiigle 'factor:'in'imy life, however, was Hans' yon Buldw. He call-: ed mo to the opera at Meiningen in 1885 as second conductor, and to him I owe what I know about interpretation and conducting. Even to-day, when I conduct Beethoven, I have Bulow's interpretation in mind."

. One of tho German bassos of -the Now-York ■ Metropolitan has become a musical comedy star 'in Berlin., "Night After Night/ reports the American Associated Press, "ho impersonates the role of Casaniva in a musical revue, not only becauso he is paid well, but chiefly because he finds opera'too stilted and'rigid to permit of unfolding his whole ability as an comments the //San Francisco Chronicle." This reflects a traditional notion that, opera is more 'fixed a pattern of conventions than are other arts and entertainments. Is it : nearly-",, as < stilted, in fact, as the ordinary musical comedy, with its. sweet starette wooing the audience's affections, its immaculately creased'horo who can neatly turn a dance, its terpsichorean ensemble turning out to cavort when the house is weary of a" silly story, and its saving grave, the vaudeville comedian?. A great difference is that there is often music worthy of the name in opera. "Good, musical comedies, especially of late,- have been clever in. their treatment of dance tunes. Our German basso is too heavy to dance. It will not speak well for his sense of his art if, the munic of his revue makes him. sing ballads*.'of the soft the commercial success of Broadway musical comedy has made internationally popular. Sometimes a' young singer ,on the way to an opera career, confronts opportunity in the field of musical comedy. Ho may make money at this profession. Otherwise the work is injurious. • No voice can long bear up under the necessity of singing a part, be it insipid or difficult,' nightly through a successful theatre run. ■ And, it is a rare lyric 'actor,! like our German basso, 1 who, other things being equal, can find refreshment in the daily repetition of a musical' comedy impersonation while opera practice, with its three "or foar sallies ■ a Week ' into different roles in an international repertory, bores him with its repressions.,.' !.'"■.■'