MUSICAL NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11226, 25 March 1897, Page 2

MUSICAL NOTES.

[By Counter-Tenor, in “ Canterbury Times.]” Mr Arthur Salvani, late of Dunedin, is teaching singing in Auckland, A. company opera club has been formed in Auckland. Princess Ida will be its first production. From Hawke’s Bay comes word that an operatic society has been formed at Hastings. Mr H. H. Hunt is conductor. It is intended to produce an opera in June. I was sorry not to see Mr T. H. Barnett, the secretary to the Christchurch Liedertafel, in his accustomed place at the concert on Friday, especially as indisposition was the cause of his absentee.

It is undoubtedly right that the audience at the Liedectafel’s Herrcn Abend should be allowed to smoke, but in common justice to the unfortunate non-smokers and the performers, would it not be advisable if the process of “ lighting- up ” were not permitted to take place until say half the programme had been got through. I do not remember having seen a larger audience at a Herren Abend, of the Christchurch Liedertafel than that which assembled at Hobbs’s Buildings on Friday. The programme, was full of old friends, but it was none the less enjoyable on account of this. I detected symptoms of unsteadiness in one or tii-o of the part songs, but at the first concert after the holidays this, perhaps, is i not to be wondered at. The weakness in the first tenors, although still apparent, was hardly so noticeable as usual, and altogether I thought I saw promise of considerable improvement in the immediate future. The most successful part song of the evening was undoubtedly “ Old Bacchus.” The number in itself is bright and humorous, and its humour is accentuated when sung by the Christchurch Liedertafel by the fact that an extra broadening of the first syllable in Bacchus renders the similarity between the name of the god of wine and. a prominent- member of the society remarkable. “Prayer Before Battle” I thought was distinctly good, and so were “The Topers’ Glee” and “Students’ Parting Song,” the last-named sung in compliment to Mr Isaac Gibbs, one of the most prominent of the society’s second basses, who left on Saturday on a visit to England. Of the vocal soloists, Mr Millar was in great form and was accorded the distinguished honour of a double encore. Mr Millar, I am glad to see reverted to such a fine old song as “ The Friar of Orders Grey,” and I trust he will •give us more of these old English songs, which are amongst the hest in our language. Mr Appleby was in particularly good voice, but “Non e Ter” loses its principal charm when sung in anything but Italian, and there was a. tendency to drag certain portions of tho number. Mr Newman made a good deal of Aht’s “Particularly Jolly,” but Mr Broadhurst’s singing of “ Rose Marie ” was too lifeless to be thoroughly successful. Mr Hugh Reeves, howevei’, infused plenty of vigour into " The Scout,” and his legato singing in his encore song “ Shall I compare Thee to a Summer’s Day ” was excellent. Speaking personally, I derived rather more than the usual amount of enjoyment from Mr Wallace’s violin solos. I mean that although I always appreciate Mr Wallace’s playing immensely, I enjoyed it more than over on Friday. A romance by Gabriel Marie, a delightful French composition, played entirely on the muted strings, and very strong in melody served as an excellent foil to a serenade,, also by Marie, a composition with a quaint pizzicato movement. The former is, I understand, new to Christchurch, but the latter I have heard Mr Wallace play before. Of course they were encored At a recent performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt in London, the famous duet “Tho Lord is a Man of War,” instead of being given by the full chorus, was sung by Mr Andrew Black and Mr Watkin Mills. The change, which was made by Pfofessor Bridge, is applauded by the English critics.

After nearly two years of home life in his. native Bohemia, Dvorak has determined to return to the United States, and he will resume his old position of Director of the Americau Conservatory of Music. In all likelihood he will make tho country his permanent abode and become a naturalised American.

At the first performance of La Traviata, the tenor singer, M. Graziani, took cold, and sang his part in a hoarse and almost inaudible voice. M. Yaresi, having what he would call a secondary role, took no trouble to bring out the dramatic importance of this short but capital part, so that the effect of the celebrated duet between Violetta and Germond in the second act was entirely missed. Madame Donatelli, who impersonated the delicate, sickly heroine, was one of the stoutest ladies on the stage or off it, and when at the beginning of the third act the doctor declares that consumption had wasted away the young lady, and that she cannot live more than a few hours, the audience was thrown into a state of perfectly uproarious glee—a state very different from that necessary to appreciate the tragic action of the last act. No wonder that La Traviata made a fiasco under these trying circumstances. Yet, when more adequately performed, the opera soon became an immense favourite with audiences of all nations, and Verdi had no reason to remember the disasters attending its first appearance in public. What curious accidents (says a contemporary) have arisen from the use of the h&tonl Everyone knows how Lully provided himself with a stick some six feet long, with which he gave loud knocks on the floor, in order to make his fiddlers keep time. One day, instead of hitting the floor, he hit his foot; an abscess followed, and time ceased to bo for poor Lully. Luckily the baton incidents are, as a rule, less serious than amusing. At Brussels, recently, during the performance of a rhapsody of Brahms, the conductor made a too sweeping pass with his stick, with the result that it struck the desk violently and flew across the hall, to fall at last at the feet of the German ambassador. In this ease, happily, there were neither killed nor wounded. Arditi was not quite so fortunate when, as he tolls us in his recent Reminiscences, ho raised a huge lump on the head of one of his players by hitting him with the “ golden Apollo ” that made the point of a present i-

tion wand. The signor even confesses to having once brought his stick down on tho caput'of Mario, who “ behaved most admirably ” under the stunning blow. Hayers sometimes strive for scats beside the conductor ; it is evident that in some cases a litlo distance would lend enchantment to that much discussed individual. Tho London Musical Times has an article on the “ The Italian Career,” in which it says that “ Italy no longer exerts a paramount influence in the evolution of the art. The pronortion of really great singers who hail from the ‘ land of song’ at the present day has dwindled into insignificance; and, what is even more remarkable, the bestknown Italian singers of to-day by no means owe their reputation to their exposition of tho bel canto, but rather to the skill with whicli they have adapted themselves to the declamatory style of Germany.” The Pall Mall Gazette lately had an article on tho same subject, in which it exposes the system _of fraud and black-mail which intending debutants are subjected to by all concerned. The writer cautions English students of vocal music against Italian teachers, who are utterly unable to teach them the kind of vocal music operatic audiences want to hear to-day, and goes ou to say: It is "necessary to mention that the very best Italian singing- masters are absolutely ignorant of all that is not old Italian opera, and that it is useless to expect from thorn lessons in dramatic declamation and in such sobriety of style as is required for successful coping with the exigencies of the modern repertory. are taught antiquated traditions of Bcllinian, Donizettian, and eai-ly Verdian scores; yon learn puntaturo by the yard and cadenzas by the mile ; but not one in a hundred can tell you the exact movements even of “Lohengrin.”