WORLD of MUSIC

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 26 July 1924, Page 13

WORLD of MUSIC

NOTES AND COMMENTS. i I ( Interest in the coming production of “Our Miss Gibbs’’ is growing as the ! date comes nearer. The allotment of parts has been made, and now good all-round progress will be made. A ; great success is confidently anticipated. | A great treat is assured for lovers of music on Tuesday next, when M iss Maida Hooker will give her fij'st recital since returning from London. She has 1 made great strides in her profession, j and it will be specially interesting to those many friends who have watched . her career at Home with such keen : and sympathetic interest. It will also ' be very interesting that she will be as- ' sisted by Mr AV. Hutchens, so well and favourably known to Hawera. people. Another interesting event to come off in the near future is the next concert of the Male Choir. They are rehearsing I regularly, and promise a very interesting programme. The violin recital being arranged by Mr M. Newberry has been postponed for a month owing to the selected date clashing with another local fixture. It will be given about October 2, when lie will have the assistance of the wellknown tenor, Mr Arthur Ripley. ETHEL OSBORN. MELBA PREDICTS BRIGHT CAREER, AND HEADS AIDING FUND. By the courtesy of Lady de Chair, Madame Nellie Melba gave an audition last week to Miss Ethel Osborn at Government House, and expressed to the soprano’s teacher, Mr Roland Foster, the opinion that but little remained to be done in the way of. vocal study to prepare his pupil for a brilliant operatic career. The chief essentials would be a repertoire, languages, and acting. To launch the young singer under suitable conditions, Dame Nellie considers that at least £ISOO should he raised, and she generously offered to give the first £IOO on condition that the full amount would be eventually forthcoming. The diva hopes that at least ten or a dozen patrons mav be found ready to follow her lead "with similar amounts, leaving the balance to lie made un from other sources. Dame Nellie has further arranged for Miss Osborn to be present at all the remaining performances of the opera season, and to receive special coaching from Schiavoni, one of the conductors of the company. CHRISTCHURCH CATHEDRAL ORGAN. PROPOSAL TO REBUILD. The present organ in the Cathedral IS , from the organist’s point of view, satisfactory up to a point, but-it is by no means a perfect instrument. The replacing of it has been a matter which the Cathedral Chapter has had under consideration for some time, and recently estimates for the cost of rebuilding the organ have been received from England. So far the Chanter has reached no decision in the matter. Dr. J. C. Bradshaw, the Cathedral organist, said to-day that the present organ had good parts which could be incorporated _ in the new instrument, for the rebuilding process would mean that iiractically a new instrument would be made. If the work was done it would take about a year to do, and the new organ would be placed in a different position from the present one. JOHN RALSTON: SCHUBERT. “There never was a man in whose life a woman, or the memory of a woman, did not play a part.” This is the wellknown adage which particularly applies to Schubert, who was so remarkably portrayed by Jolm Ralston at Sydney recently. History gives us no authentic record of romance in Schubert’s life, but the play with poetic license provides delightful excuse for many exquisite love songs from Ralston’s lips. Ihis splendid actor will he best remembered for his work in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He toured America, and recently returned to take this part, which is undoubtedly the crowning success of his career. MUSIC. | THE OPERA SEASON. (Spectator.) On May 5, for the first time since the war, a company of. German operatic artists were heard in London: a solemn thought. For those who have had the privilege of hearing them in their own country since the war know that they need expect no deterioration from the days of Nikiseh and Richter. Herr Bruno Walter is famous all over Germany, especially for his conducting at the Munich operatic festivals, which are the highest possible test. The list of singers makes an imposing array. Among them we recognise the well-known names of Gertrud Kappel, Selma Kurz (who was lately heard at the Albert Hall), Elizabeth Schumann, Jaquos Ur Ins, and Richard Mavr. All these are tried artists of magnificent technique and tone—qualities we could do with a little more of here in England, and in every way we shall have much to learn from them. During the first fortnight we shall hear two cycles of “The Ring.” throe performances of “Tristan,” and two of “Salome.” It is announced in the prospectus that the company’s repertoire includes both “Ariadne”"and “Der Rosenkavalier,” and it is to he hoped that later on we may hear these beautiful works, both of them belonging to the second and more satisfactory period of Strauss’ career as a. composer. However, it will be interesting to hear “Salome” again, after so great a lapse of time, though the delicious sound of

the orchestral writing has by now ceased to obscure the essential commonplaceness of the themes. Those who heard Ackte in the name-part may be dubious about any other singer, but there seems every reason to suppose that Fraulein Goeta Liusgberg, whose name is new to ns, will surpass the expectations of the doubters. A moredetailed discussion of the music Anust be left to a later occasion. Performances of “Dei- Rosenkavalier” are the more to be solicited, as we have among the singers two of its most famous interpreters—Fraulein Schumann, whose acting and singing in the part of Marschallin can only be called exquisite, and Herr Mayr, whose performance as the Baron Ochs is one of the most finished things we have ever heard. In the depths of the rather dreary list of Italian operas that are to follow from the third week onwards, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” makes a little oasis, but it is depressing to note that as the opera will be performed during the Italian season, we shall presumably not hear Herr Mayr in the part of Leporello—a role in which he is well known. It is likewise a cause for distress that every opera of Verdi’s (including the almost unknown “Macbeth”) should be in the repertoire except the most beautiful of all, “Othello.” The omission seems quite inexplicable. The rest of the list does not bear inspection, with its repetition of Puccini and early Verdi, interspersed by AVo If-Ferrari’s surely negligible “Jewels of the Madonna” and the übiquitous “Pagliacci.” But let us be thankful for a mercy that is certainly not small, and look forward to at any rate a fortnight of unalloved pleasure. E. S. W. MUSIC AND MORALS. Sir Dan Godfrey, the famous Bournemouth conductor, writes “Memories and Music: Thirty-five Years of Conducting.” The author is not a practised writer, and he lacks either a sense or a gift of humour, though, scattered through the narrative of a varied and interesting career, are a few bright anecdotes. We quote one about a military band that was touring the provinces : A band had been providing the music for a ball given at some great country house. After partaking of a luxurious supper, the men started in the early morning to walk through the country lanes to their lodgings. Overcome by fatigue—or was it the “pastry;-”’—if trombone placer lay down under a hedge for a short nan. He was deep in slumber, when a bull, wandering along the road, spied the scarlet form. At' the sight of the detested colour it stopped short and bellowed loudly. The bandsman, partially awakened by what he thought was a familiar sound, drowsily remarked: “That isn’t A.” Again the hull bellowed. Still in the land of dreams, the musician slowly murmured: “No, nor that’s not A either.” The bull, annoyed doubtless by the criticism, rushed at the motionless scarlet figure, and. tossed it over the hedge ’into a field beyond. Resigning himself to fate, and not seeing the aggressor through the thick hedge, the critic murmured, as he again dozed off: “You may be a very strong fellow—l don’t say you are not, that wasn’t the argument—but you are no musician, and never will be. It wasn’t A.”

There is little point ip most of the stories, except that they are chiefly about famous people. AVo read of Dame Nellie Melba: Melba is very insistent upon being announced as “Dame Nellie Melba.” I once incurred the displeasure of the great prima donna by omitting her Christian name, and argued that greater prominence could he given by the title by which she had always been known . . . pointing out that Tetrazzini, Caruso, Paderewski, etc., were always known as such, and that there was only one Melba. It was entirey different in the ease of Dame Clara Biftt, whose Christian name had always been used. Dame Nellie can be most gracious; but woe betide you if you incur her ire. Sir Dan tells a personal narrative, not the least interesting part of which describes his early experience with opera in South Africa. He includes in this volume an essay “Municipal Music,” looking hopefully to the- time when jazz will be no more; and as an appendix he gives a list of all British ! works performed at Bournemouth, j These are of permanent value. The • book is handsomely and liberally illustrated.

ATr Percy Seholes, the discerning musical critic of the London Observer, has collected an interesting budget of Ill's notes and comments from that journal, and under the title of “Crotchets” they ait> published by the Bodley Head, London. Air Seholes’ observations upon tlie problems of modern music are readable and eminently wise. Many of the disastrous examples of indiscriminate applause which he quotes from London concert halls have their counterpart in the experience of Alelbourne concert-goers, and his suggestion that true appreciation would be fostered were annotated programmes to be sold together with tickets of admittance, in order that the untutored listener might come better prepared to temper his enUhusiasm with discretion, is greatly to the point. Discussing that vexed question, what the public want*, Air Seholes rightly scouts the belief that to cultivate a popular taste for good music one must l>egan with bad and proceed to better before arriving at the goal. The public, he iileads, is satisfied with bad tunes only because it cannot get better. AYe can give them what they want without going outside the field of good, making our concessions by preferring the short to the long, the simple to the involved, and the less serious to the more serious. Some illuminating notes on Scriabin, Stravinsky, and others, and some" valuable criticism of tendencies in modern church music, are among many good things in this stimulating book.