THE REV. H. R. HAWEIS.

Evening Star, Issue 9721, 1 June 1895, Page 2

THE REV. H. R. HAWEIS.

__ Lagt night's lecture was somewhat too profound for the majority of people. Its title was Music and Noise,' and, although on the face of it the subject appears a simple one, the lecturer invested it with very different qualities. Atone time he waded deeply into an analysis of sound, and many of the statements he made contained much matter which the ordinary mind could not possibly understand without some consideration. But, although the finer points of his arguments might not have been fully grasped, ic is safe to say that his hearers at am-i-ate saw the general drift of his contentions, and so they were enabled to appreciate the lecture. The subject was treatel by Mr Haweis very cleverly, the serious being deftly connectei with the humorous, and not one but quite a number of hearty outbursts of merriment were heard in the hall during the evening. Music, Mr Haweis says, is more the creation of man than any of the other ars. Nature his done a good deal for the sculptor, for she has given him his model and he has only to copy. She has given to the painter his color and his landscape, all in beautiful arrangement, and he, too, has only to copy But Nature docs little for the musician. In Nature the musician finds all sorts of noise 3 and sounds—musical, no doubt, but musical sounds were not mu?ic. Nature gave the musician a great quarry of sounds —rumbling, hissiuc moaning, and all kiLcb- aud he had to go there and colli cb the element of his sou'id. The miner found tl e gold in the qu;riz, and he had to take it out and prepare it for current coin ; the musxiau found his material in Nature, and he had to select it, make music out of more or less musical sounds, and then put the hallmark of art upon it. That there was no music in Nature was a most unpopular tentimeut, but it was true. Many people would tell him he had forgotten the birds. Surely, they wou'd say, the cuckoo and the nightingale sing. The singing of these birds, he would reply, was a musical sound no doubt, but it was not music employed for the expression of the emotions. It was music of a kirn 1 , howes e-, and it was true jt was made use of and improved by the musiciau. The lecturer gave some amusing illustrations oii the violin of the sounds found in Nature, and then cairied his hearers into the deeper parts of his subject, explaining the difference between noise and a musical note, the qualities of musical notes, and the effect music produced upon many parous. In closing his lecture, he analysed emotion and sound to prove that sound possesses outwardly all the attributes which emotion possesses inwardly, and showed that_io is- music that weds emotion to sound. During the evening Mr Haweis was,.presented with a bfautiful basket of chrvsantkemums, for which he returned to the fair donors his wannest thanks. To-night Mr Haweis will deliver his last lecture in Dunedin, having to lecture in Christchurch on Tuesday. He is leaving here on Monday, and this will be positively the last opportunity of hearing the most' original lecturer that ever visited tho colonies. His subject, 'Marriage: Is it a Failure?' is acknowledged by the entire Press and public to be one of Mr Haweis's finest and most sympathetic efforts, the lecture invariably drawing the largest audience of the season.