MUSIC IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 97, 29 April 1929, Page 10

MUSIC IN AUSTRALIA

MR. ALFRED HILL'S PLACE

A X OMAN TIC FIGURE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) .: SYDNEY, 11th April.

Mr. Alfred Hill is one of the few New Zealanders who, having achieved a fair measure of success in Australia, has succeeded in retaining his nationality. That is to say, the newspapers still refer to him as a New Zealander, and not as an Australian. It is an unfortunate fact that the other day tho "Sydney Morning Herald" described him as an Australasian, but that was surely a slip of the pen on the part of the writer, and can only be excused on that account.: .

Mr. Hill, is best known for his delightful Maori compositions, and that is perhaps 'the reason why he has been able to retain his nationality. In the musical world of Australia he is almost a romantic figure. He certainly occupies a high place in the affections of the people with whom he and his music are in close contact. Of course there are thousands who do not know Mr. Hill and his music. Mr. Hill is one of those impassioned believers in the mystery, the wonder, and the significance, the religious importance of music. The progress of music in Australia has never been better exemplified than during the Easter Week, when hundreds of musicians gathered at the Sydney Consorvatorium, the heart of music in the Commonwealth, and discussed the problems besetting their profession. It has been,said of Mr. Alfred Hill that he has reached the status and the state of mind where he can say what ho pleases and calmly ignore the possible consequences. He is one of the few world-famous composers in Australia, but to have heard him talking at the conference a stranger would have thought that ho was a gentleman from outback with musical sympathies and a determination to interest his hearers by protending that he was what the Americans call a rough neck. Consider this example of rhis oratory, taken verbatim as he sat cross-legged on a chair and addressed crowds of nuns and scores more of lady teachers: — "You know, I walk about the Conservatorium here and listen —they think old Hill does not keep his ears open.. But ho does. There are dozens "of boys studying hero, and they want to play the last quartets of Beethoven first. Well, I thought it was up to me to compose somothing easy for them, to give them a chance. Well, I have done it. Hero it is" (holding aloft some sheets of music), "tho Kids' Quartet. And if any of, you anywhere in New South Wales want some music composed for any special purpose to help your pupils, I or any of the other composers kicking about the Con. will be happy to do it for you." Thcro.is not an utterance of Mr. Hill's that is not sound at bottom, but for some esoteric reason the many nuns twittered among themselves like so many happy birds throughout Mr. Hill's'heartening lecture. Perhaps they mistook his philosophisings for pleasantries. His subject was supposed to bo music in the home. He rofereri to it in the first sentence. "I have said all that I can say about my subject— which is nothing—because my experience tolls mo that there is no music in tho home, unless you count in the wireless and the gramophone."