"MUSICAL."

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6874, 12 March 1883, Page 6

"MUSICAL."

h» TO THE EDITOR. Biu.—Had your correspondent, d.W,, W thi* OWrniflg bc«B pOWMMd 01 * **IW«

journalistic experience, be would not hive committed two grove errors. Hi* ■«"•* woe in writing at all \ bis second, in not pointing out the true defect of the report on in# performance of "St John the Baptist *h#n be did write. ... , First of ell, by writing as he Ims done, be has routed double attention to be drown to word* which he consider# injudicious, and which would otherwise have been forgotten by those whom they concerned, wills all convenient rapidity. As U is, they will now rankle in someone’s memory for right or ton days At the least- In the second place, he should have written somewhat attor thu style!—" the writer of that severely critical, but otherwise valuable and very intelligent report” (it is always as well to err on the safe side of politeness with an editor and his staff) "on the performance of 'St John the J Baptist,’ which appeared in your column# this morning, ha# allowed an extraordinary oversight to occur in it. He ha#, in some inexplicable manner, omitted all mention of Miss Spenslcy, who sang the music of Salome in a way that stamped her a# a highly cultivated musician, and one of our most promising artists. The bold, amt withal, skilful method in which she successfully attacked the difficult solo, ‘I Rejoice in my Youth,’ was the theme of general admiration j it showed that she passeeses executive power, end flexibility as well as range of voice, in no ordinary degree, especially, as I believe, her training and musical education has been an exclusively Colonial one.” Then 1 should have employed my most persuasive manner to indues you, Sir, to commit w breach of the very strictest rule of journalistic etiquette, ana reveal me his name, in order that I might pay him a visit privately and thank him, and »y, "My dear Sir, a thousand thanks j you have made mo the neatest apology possible i from henceforth I am your deeply indebted servant, Do you smoke ? Well, then, oome along to my Club | we’ve some excellent dry old sherry there just now, or perhaps you will stick oy ginger-ale. How Barnett must hare worked throe fellows up to sing that last chorus as they did—finest thing I’ve heard in Christchurch, I assure you.” And then we should have trotted down the street and argued out our little ideas on musical reporting, as pleasantly as possible. By and bye we should hare rambled on about Maefarren and Sullivan, and the young composers, Tilliere, Stanford and Goring, Thome# and Mackenzie, and aU the rest of them, and got quite confidential about Mr Kaox’s conducting at the Orchestral Society, and so on. We should bate compared notes on Wilbelmji and the Quintette Club, and rubbed up old memories of Major Lean and Madame Oarandini, or J. T. M’Leod Smith, who produced this, that and the other work with restless enterprise. And in the end we should have found it was high time to get bock to work, and separated, wondering how on earth we could have been so snarly in the first instance. As it is 1 can only think of him as Prophet Wiggins’ sou’-wester, and advise him to remember that he must be a very clever person who is perfection especially os a Journalist. In conclusion, may he never enter on the career of a newspaper writer, aai road over a late breakfast words which, after having " slept on them,” he would fain excise, alter, soften or amplify, os the cose may be. Above all, may he never experience that most disagreeable of pains—the pain of having given pain to others, unwittingly and of no set malice, as bos sometime# been the tad fate of your March 10. " CYNICAL OBITIC.” TO TflS XDXTOB, fins,—As a listener to the oratorio given on Thursday evening last in the Durham street Wesleyan Church, I must disagree altogether with “ B.W.V* remarks onent your criticism thereon. I think the performers were let off very lightly, oven from a colonial standpoint. Again, if the work in question was given in 1877, as slated in " Haotbois’ ” letter, it could not have been altogether unknown to some, at least, of the singers. As admission was charged for just the same a* at all other concerts in the town, the performance became a public one, and all public entertainments open to criticism, which in "S.W.’s” estimation would seem to mean praise or nothing.—l am, Ac., ONE OF THE AUDIENCE.