WORLD OF MUSIC.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 November 1924, Page 15

WORLD OF MUSIC.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. Tiie Lutheran Church in America, we hear from New York, compians that many church organists are succumbing to the influence of jazz, and the Church has therefore issued an edict prohibiting any but purely sacred music being played on Lutheran Church organs. The Lutherans have also banned the song, “Yes, We Save No Bananas.” If the latter prohibition is 'as recent as it appears to be the Lutherans must surely be the most long-suffering crowd in the world. Why even in New Zealand most people were “fed up” with it some time ago.

“The Etude” recently appointed a “world court” of 26 musicians, who were asked to name the greatest ten masterpieces of music. Among the judges was Percy Grainger, Leopold Auer, John Carpenter (the American,, composer)’ Vincent dYndy, GalliCuroi, Mark Hamburg, Josef Hofmann, Edwin Lemae Moskowski, Puccini, (and Seigfried Wagner. On the works chosen votes were east as follow: “The Mastersdngers,” 14; B Minor Mass, 10; Beethoven’s Fifty Symphony, 9; “Tristan,” 9; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, 7; “Carmen,’’ 7; “Pathetique” symphony,' 5; “Don Giovanni,” 4; Brahms’ first symphony, 4; Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, 4; Chopin’s B-flat minor sonata, 4; “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune,” 4; Sonata Opus HI. (Beethoven), 4; Beethoven’s seventh symphony, 4; St. Matthew Passion, 4; “Unfinished” symphony, 4; “Erl King,” 4; “Parsifal,” 4. The high place accorded by distirigushed musicians to “Oannen” is perhaps the feature of the voting. The rating of the composers was as follows: Beethoven 36, Wagner 33, Bach 24, Mozart 14, Brahms 14, Schubert 13, Chopin 12, Schumann 12, Mendelssohn 8, Techaikowsky 8, Debussy 7, Bizet 7, Franck 7. THE VOCALIST. From the well-known big-game hunter, F. C. .Cornell, comes the story of how one evening he was returning to camj) in South Africa from a prospecting expedition, unarmed and alone, when to his horror, he found himself stalked by three leopards. “Knowing from experience that most wild beasts are frightened by the human voice,” says Mr_ Cornell, “I let out a yell that scared even myself and repeated the dose every few yards of the way back, until I was as hoarse as a crow, and my yells began to lack vim. “Bit pleased with yourself, ain’t you?” was iny welcome’ on reaching camp. ‘We heard you singing for the last hour or more. Thought you might have struck someone with whisky.’ MILTON AND THE POWER OF MUSIC. In Vol. 11. of his “Short- History of the English People,” Green, with that wonderful power of picturing conditions in England at. the time of winch he was writing, says of John Mil-ton.: “His earlier verse, the pamphlets of his riper years, the epics of his age, mark with a singular precision the three great stages in its history. His yquth shows us how much of the gaiety, the poetic ease, the intellectual culture of the R!enai®anoe lingered in a Puritan home. Starivene-r ahd ‘precisian,’ a.s his father was, was a skilful musician: and the boy inherited liis father’s skill on lute and organ. One of the finest outbursts in the scheme of education which he put forth at a. later time is a. passage in which he vindicates the promise of music as an agent in moral training." His love of music, and specially of church music, is shown in many of his writings, for instance as he hears “the pealing organ blow to the full-voiced choir below, in service high and anthem clear.” Green says again that despite his Puritan life and upbringing “the young singer could still enjoy ‘the jest and youthful jollity’ of the world around him, of its ‘quips and cranks and wanton wiles’; he could join the crew of mirth and look pleasantly on at the village fair, ‘where the jolly rebecks sound to many ai youth, and many a maid dancing in the chequered shade.’ ”