MR FREDERICK MOORE

Evening Star, Issue 21570, 16 November 1933, Page 16

MR FREDERICK MOORE

CIVIC RECEPTION TO EMINENT MUSICIAN A warm welcome was extended to Mr Frederick Moore, an examiner of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and a former resident of Dunedin, upon his arrival from the north last evening. Mr Moore was tendered a civic reception in the Council Chamber. The Mayor (the Rev. E. T. Cox) said he greeted Mr Moore in the name of the city—a city in which their visitor had spent his boyhood days, and no doubt his mind harked back to those days. Mr Moore’s father had played a distinguished part in the development of musical appreciation in their city. Mr Irwin Moore, a brother, was a distinguished musician, and was a personal friend, as he had taught his (the speaker’s) wife. Then there was Miss Vera Moore, a sister, who had won as prominent a place in the world of music as their visitor of that afternoon. The Mayor said that Mr Moore had made a great contribution to the art of music both ,as a lecturer and as a composer. He had won a place in the sun and had done honour to New Zealand as avell as to himself. (“Hear, hear.”) They realised that music was the first of the arts. Goethe had said: “See great art, read great literature, hear great music every day.” Dunedin had many lovers of music, and he hoped Mr Moore’s stay in their city would be an enjoyable one. The Mayor expressed the hope that Mr Moore would take the opportunity of looking around Dunedin’ and noting its growth. Their Art Gallery was not up to the standard of being put alongside the Tate Gallery, but in the new wing at the Museum they had, from an architectural point of view, from its interior, and from its exhibits, a place worthy of being compared with a similar wing at South Kensington. Their Town Hall, with its appointments, was the finest suite in the Southern Hemisphere. The Mayor said that they appreciated the kind offer of Mr Moore to give a Chopin recital on Saturday night, the proceeds to be devoted to providing Christmas cheer for the children of the unemployed. (Applause.) ...... Mr J. T. Leech (president ot the Society of Musicians of Otago), Dr Galway, and Mr H. Riddle (secretary of the Music Teachers’ Association) also welcomed Mr Moore. Mr Moore, replying, said it had given him great pleasure to come back once again to Dunedin. He-had never lost his love for the city in which he had spent his boyhood days. His family had landed iu Dunedin in 1877, and he had missed being a native of Dunedin by about twelve months. They had lived in Russell street, and ho intended to walk again up “ Breakneck.” Mr Moore said that in eighteen .months, when he got back to London, 1 he would have travelled 40,000 miles—in England, South Africa, and so on. He. asked them to believe him when he said that no place in the world had appealed to him like New Zealand, and- no place in New Zealand had appealed to him, as had Dunedin. (Applause;)-...'When they compared the conditions of life in ptber places one felt that-tho people, of New Zealand were indeed fortunate. In fho Midlands ho had heard the workers going to their employment, at, 6 o’clqck in the morning, tneir. clogs, making, their presence known. In -New Zealand .one could live comfortably even on a small amount per week. It was indeed a Vunderfill land. The speaker gave Some details of the experiences of Chopin, the patriotic Pole, when, he had come to London in 1848, and referred to the development of character through "the love of music and its production. He concluded by saying that he was still a student, studying the beauties ot art.