DUNEDIN LIEDERTAFEL.

Evening Star, Issue 12875, 26 July 1906, Page 6

DUNEDIN LIEDERTAFEL.

Opod music, well performed—no concertgoer can ask more; and that is tb© general verdict on the Dunedin Liedertafel’s seventyfourth concert; given last night , in the Choral HalL Mr Timsoo, the conductor, says that it is a matter of no little difficulty tv keep on adding new works of sufficient merit to the society’s repertoire concert after concert. A vast quantity of new compositions are “assayed” as they are published, if one may borrow a metallurgist's" term. A selection of those that read as the most promising is made; and, to continue the metaphor, they are given a trial crushing in the mill of rehearsal. The weeding out process has to go yet further, for in some oases the raenlte of the trial crushing do not come up to the expectations formed from the assays—refractory ore, no doubt. In other words, the music, for some reason or other, does ■ not sound so well as it read. The piece refuses to ** go,” and is cither discarded as a concert number or laid aside in the meantime; .Subscribers to the society thus have nothing but the very best of fare put before them. Ibis aspect is mentioned because the unthinking are apt to overlook it. By the end erf this year Mr Timson will have conducted his fiftieth Liedertafel concert, and it wHI be readily understood what a' vast amount of prospecting work he must’ have done in connection with the mere selection and preparation of the programme - for each ol these. With what ability and care he has carried out this task is proved at each successive concert. Seldom or never baa a new composition been put forward that has not entirely justified its- performance in public. Of the numbers given by the sc ciety for the first time last night the pari song, ‘A message to Phyllis,’ claims firrt attention. The composer, (Jerald Oobb, took with this work a prize of £lO offered by the South London Musical Chib in 1886. The words, by Thomas Hcywood, date back to the seventeenth century, and, aa the title indicates, the verses are redolent of the eweet and pleasant atmosphere of Arcady. The music is admirably wedded to them. It is a splendid example of music of the thoroughly English school. Melodious to a degree it is, and the imitation work allotted to the four parts in no way destroys the idyllic simplicity befitting tb© subject. Hero and there, especially in-the little pianoforte interludes between the verses, there is a reminiscence of the more modem romanticism of Schubrt or Schumann. Altogether, it is a number that will well bear repetition, (notwithstanding that there is a shade of weakness . about the construction of the ending). Works of the German school so preponderate in the repertoire’ of nearly all Liedertaiels that, perhaps on merely patriotic grounds, one welcomes an English composition of such outstanding merit. It was delightfully rendered by the choir. The motive of Blnmenthal’s part song ‘What care 1-how fair she be’--also performed for the first time—is put in a nutshell in the annotation to the programme—‘ My troubles' (modem saying). A fine expression of scorn is contained in this setting of Withers verses, and it lost nothing in the rendering. But undoubtedly the finest part singing of the concert was the choir’s performance of ‘Thou comest hero to the;land,’ an excerpt from Mendelssohns music :to tlie Greek play, ‘ (Edipus et Cokmoe,’ last given hero in 1902. The choir were divided into two, after the manner of cantoris and decani, during the singing of the canfidea in tb© Church of England service, strophe and antistroplie alternating. Wlien the composer makes use of the two choirs together some eight-part writing is introduced with superb effect. As the concluding, passage in unison —fortissimo at the beginning of the last lines, ‘Bounding on by the dancing nymphs, Nereue'a hundred-footed daughters ’ died away to silence, the audience were not slow to realise that they had been treated to a performance little short of magnificent. Another number that drew grfiat applause, and was, in fact, part repeated, was ‘A morning serenade’ (Ludolfs), hi which eolo parts were capably taken by Messrs J. Blenkinsopp and F. Hendry." The first number on the programme (sung like the number just mentioned, without accompaniment) was Hatton’s ‘ The happiest land,’ which has not been produced here since 1900, and it proved very acceptable. * Spin, spin (Jungst). ‘The watchword’ (Pinsuti), and Aid's ‘Langhing wng ’ are old favorites, and went well. . . The members of the Liedertafel who gave solo items were Messrs Alfred Ibbotson, who was encored after singing ‘ Hear the wild winds blow,’ and Mr James Armstrong, who gave ‘ Across the far blue hills, Marie’; while that stirring duet ‘Watchman, what of the night? ’ (Sergeant) wan given with considerable success by Messrs E. Eager and T. J. Hussey. Tlie society were assisted by Mrs R. A. Power, who, so far as we know, is new to the Dunedin concert platform. Mrs Power has a light contralto voice of such purity and real beauty as to at once compel admiration. That she knows how to use it was proved in her singing of ‘ Sunshine xml rain,’ and more particularly, of ‘ Beloved, it is mom,’ to both’ of which she’ granted the audience’s request for encore numbers. The other soloist, Miss Gertrude Meenan, was not too well advised in selecting Wieniaweld’s difficult ‘Polonaise brillante’ as a violin solo. It is but just to add that on its conclusion she was recalled -and had to bow her acknowledgments. Mr W. E. Taylor accompanied with his cue ternary good taste, and, together with Mr Timson, gave as a piano duet Mendelssohn’s military outturn. The attendance filled the ' Choral Hall. -