WORLD OF MUSIC

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 16 July 1927, Page 8

WORLD OF MUSIC

CHORAL SOCIETY.

RESUMPTION AT MANAIA.

It will be a decided interst for the people all around the Manaia district to know that the Choral Society has once again resumed practice, under the direction of Rev. .1. I>. Smith, it had established itself a town institution and had done good work, valuable musically as well as from a public point of view. His removal made a hiatus in the work which in a small community is always hard to bridge. Hut now the society had been able to secure as a successor Air C. Lamb of Hawera. His work as conductor ol the -Scottish choir as well as the Presbyterian choir has proved his ability and it is certain that under his guidance and swayed by his enthusiasm it will continue the good work ■hitherto accomplished.

MAIN SCHOOL ORCHESTRA EXOELLEiN T W UIIK. Everyone connected with the school an despecially its musical sphere, must he highly gratified with the capital impression made by the children on their listeners. The works played were such as would test many an adult orchestra and their tutor (Mr Fox) is entitled to much credit for the results of his painstaking work and the young players for their attention to his precepts. It is an avenue of the school work which presents a wide vista for the future. The results of that work, and the influence it is certain to have on the future life of the youngsters is hard to estimate, but that it is for their good is certain. The training of the tutor will be most valuable to them, and if they are wise, and will keep up their practise, the value will be enhanced as the years fly forward. The work done is undoubtedly one of very far reaching importance, not confined only to this school and to this town and district, hut will widen and increase as these young people grow up anil get out into the world, carrying with them the ability and, let us hope, the desire to practise, and so continually improve. A foundation is being laid for a very wide and increasing structure. It is incumbent on parents and teachers to do their part by encouraging the boys and girls to go forward in the good and useful path they have begun to tread. The way, if they will, lies broad and open before them. Their inherent ability and perse-verence will decide how far they can get along the upward road. Each one of them can go some distance, and the effort in that progress will be of the utmost value and one of the most important parts of the training.

EINEST ORGAN SOUTH OF THE LINE. A new organ, costing approximately £II,OpO, is to he acquired for St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney. In making this announcement Dr. Haigh, organist at St. Andrew’s, said that the organ was built for one of the most enthusiastic amateur organists in Great Britain—Air. E. G. Aleers —who is a Bachelor of Music of Oxford, and probably better acquainted than any other livfng orgaipist with the big organs of the world. Owing to the structural alterations necessary for its installation in the organ chamber at St. Andrew’s Cathedral being somewhat greater than was originally anticipated. it may be nine months before it is ready for use. Tt lias been used in a large hall in London, which Mr. Aleers constructed for the purpose. Dr. Haigli said that it was on his recommendation that the organ was purchased. Stop for stop, he added, it would he the finest organ south of the equator, for the whole of the voicing of it was done by Air. .T. AV. AYliiteley, than whom no liner voicer of organ pipes was to he found. The organ at present in use at the cathedral would he disposed of when the new one arrived. OTTAWA’S CARILLON

Ottawa’s 53-bell carillon, the finest in the world, will (as was stated in a cablegram during the week) scatter its sweet chimes from the Peace Tower of the Canadian Houses of Parliament during this week, as a part of the Diamond Jubilee celebration. . This “linked music long drawn* out ’ ’ will float out across the city and the quiet waters of the Ottawa, and even, via radio, across the continent and the broad Atlantic to expectant listencrsin in Hu rope. The only carillon comparable to Ottawa’s is that, of the Park Avenue Baptist Church in New York, built b.v the same firm, the Croydon 801 l Fonndrv. and having the same number of bells, although not quite so heavy. But Ottawa’s singing tower stands on a hill, with no surrounding buildings to cause echoes and overtones and with the wide bowl of the Ottawa Valley to catch its silver music. Ottawa’s heaviest bell weighs 20,720 pounds, and lias a diameter of _OS inches, and the lightest, weigh nine pounds with a diameter of only Of inches. while the total weight is 110.100 pounds. The carillon is only seven notes short of the whole manual compass of the modern organ, and is able to plav almost any musical composition that can be rendered on a piano. The keyboards employ both hands and feet,'and the player can strike ns many as oiglil notes at a time. Ottawa, now takes its place in carillon history, dating back to the sixteenth century, and its music will literally ring round the world. Canada is’ proud of a memorial that will sing not only of victory and past saci jfice” but of beauty, peace and goodwill towards man.

TJHE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Id ; i leading Hondon daily an authority nil music writes interestingly oi music of the sixteenth century. Intel' alia, he says: Few who have once felt, the glamour of the Cinquecenfo ever quifo lose it. There is something in the look of. the spade-shaned notes, hold and large and clear with the best printers, and offering delicate problems of interpretation with the worst, m the intricacies of time and clef, in the hope that sustains the long Inhour ot scoring that at last we have lighted noon a jewel, and more still in the elusive stvle in which we read a perfection which the world will not easily reach again—that satisfies heart and mind and hires them on to further search. When we stand hack and look at the century as a whole we are struck by the good workmanship, which keeps an even tonour. from the pathos of Josqnin to the rich glow of \ illoria; and among Ihe hundreds- of writers Palestrina, whose life covered the middle part of the century, holds sway not soTmioh by some one characteristic as bv the skilled fusion, of narti-coloured rays into white light. Similarly, above the adventurous Taverner, the mannered 'l've, and the stately Gibbons and Tallis, rise Byrd,

20 years after Palestrina, with a closer skill and a deeper imagination than any 01 his compatriots. As between Palestrina and Byrd the 2(J yeans have had their effect, as well as the difference of predecessors. 'ld take, for instance, three rules which, with an exception of two, Palestrina follows: no voice rises a sixth; no voice proceeds upward, in short notes, by leap, from an accent; and the cumbiata—the “Knight’s move,” it lias been called —must return upon itself. These rules are not arbitrary; the lirst avoids putting to too severe a test the intonation of a note which centuries of music-making had barely established in the • scale, and the last two are directed to the most sensitive point of sixteenthcentury art, its rhythm. Byrd does not break these rules, although with the different conceptions of melody in North and South Jfiurope there was considerable temptation, hut he relaxes them, because time has gone on. In the “Gradualia” <jnsi> published by the Oxford University Press, 30s) it is 1605 instead of, say, 1585, Palestrina’s best period. A great deal is happening musically fn England in those two decades, and more is going to happen after them in Italy.

Fifty years’ association with Gilbert and Sullivan will l>e the record ol Mr. Gustavo Slapoffski this year. It was in 1877 that Messrs. J. C. Williamson’s popular cornice opera conductor first made his acquaintance with “The Sorcerer.” one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s earlier and perhaps least known works. “The Sorcerer” was produced at the London Opera Comique, and it is interesting to note that two Australians figured i)i the production. G. TL Alen lending the orchestra and Alice May playing the part of “ArJine.” “Slap.” as he is popularly termed, first came to Australia with a Musgrove Opera Company. in which his wife was the star. Tie returned as conductor of a German opera company in 1907. and in the intervening years has been associated with practically every Gilbert and Sullivan company that has visited the Dominions.