MUSICAL NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11424, 12 November 1897, Page 7

MUSICAL NOTES.

[By Counter Tenor in “Canterbury Times.”]

Messrs Mozart, Allan and Co., of Glasgow, forward No. 1 of a series of compositions for the violin by Mr Scott Douglas, entitled “ Scottish Pearls.” It includes such wellknown airs as “Charlie is My Darling,” “ The Blue Bells of Scotland,” “ A Highland Lad,” “There’s nae Luck,” “Afton Water” and “Come O’er the Stream.”

Mr Sidney Hawker, choirmaster of the New Brighton Beach Church, intends shortly to produce his pretty operetta The Beggar Boy in Christchurch. The work has already been performed at New Brighton, where it was received in a manner flattering to the composer, and a general wish was expressed that it should be produced in Christchurch. From the overture to the lasfchbte pleasing melodies abound, while the choruses are tuneful and display ability on the part of the composer. The plot deals with a phase of a street arab’s. life, and the story told is pathetic and to /o to life. Although the overture is nc t s jored for full orchestra, it brings into requisition quite enough instruments for the production of an operetta on a small scale. Mr Hawker intends, later on, to score for more instruments. The opening chorus, “Beggar Boys and Girls,” is pretty. It is followed by another of the tempo de raise, “ Simple, Simple as Can Be.” The duet, written in the key of F, is quaint and pleasing, and if well sung is one of the best numbers. “ Eest, Eest,” “Evening Hymn,” “Poor Little One,” “Peace, Peace” are melodies which met with much applause, but “Don’t Steal” is undoubtedly the most meritorious number in the work. The finale is appropriate. The operetta, if properly mounted, ought to be well received in Christchurch. The composer has evidently spent much labour on the work, and has interwoven the music and libretto most creditably. Mr Hawker has also composed a song, which wiil shortly be published. ' ’ Mr H. Weir sang the tenor music in Sullivan’s Martyr of Antioch performed by the Sydney 'Philharmonic Society on/ Oct. 14.. .

At a part performance of Gounod’s Fdusi given at Newcastle by the Amy Sherwin Company recently Mr Barton M’Guckin, through unforeseen circumstances, was unable to obtain the operatic costume associated with the leading role, and had to appear in evening dress, while the others wore the usual stage attire. The tenor, however, acted so finely that the inconsistency was overlooked hy the audience. “ T.D.” writes to the Sydney Bulletin : “ It seems to me that the world’s singers regard Australia as a recuperating ground for damaged vocal apparatus. Even the posters, hy small-typing Barton M’Guckin, seem to- admit that he is at least a semibarber ed Samson. In its lower register, the tenor’s voice is frayed, but his reach-up for a top-note is an object lesson in vocalisation. All very well to say that M’Gnckin has only done twenty years’ work to Lloyd’s thirty, but one was in nightly opera, and the other in oratorio, pleasantly diversified by light ballad singing. Stephen Adams kills nobody—save an occasional listener. Amy Sherwin, also, is obviously here for a rest.” An event of considerable interest in the musical world will he the return to her native land of Miss Eisie Stanley Hall, the young Australian pianiste, who is a passenger hy the steamer Friedrich der Grosse, which is due at Melbourne early in November. Miss Hall comes, as the Times' remarks, “ thoroughly equipped for her professional career,” and fresh from brilliant successes in London, where she was pronounced by the Musical Standard to be “one of the most charming of lady pianists now before the public.” Miss Hall evinced her great musical gift at the early age of twentyone months by picking out a simple melody on the piano. . She has had a distinguished career for one so young. At the age of twelve years she scored a brilliant success in Stuttgart, Germany, and subsequently played by command before the Queen of 'Wnrtemberg. When still only twelve she won an open pianoforte scholarship at the Eoyal College of Music, London, and at eighteen she carried off that much-coveted honour the Mendelssohn Staat Stipendium, at Berlin, in open competition against all musical Germany, and is the first English girl who has gained the distinction. It is probable that Miss Hall will visit New Zealand shortly ' Madame Melba will sing in either Martha or The Bohemian Girl during her season in America.

Sir Arthur Sullivan is stated to be composing an opera on the subject of “Peg Woffington.” At the Hereford Musical Festival in September, a Te Deum and ■ Benedictus by Mr E. Elgar, several of. whose compositions will be performed at the Christchurch Liederkran chen’s “ At Home ” on Saturday, were sung. Madame Prances Saville has accepted a very remunerative engagement in Vienna for opera. She attended at the Bayreuth Festival, and met there Wagner’s son, Seigfried, who was charmed with the Australian singer, and flattered her on her beautiful stage presence and pretty voice. The death is announced of Mr Albert L. King, a famous American tenor. Sir Charles Halle said, when Mr King sang in England, that it was the first time he had heard the voice of Mario since the death of that great singer. Mr King sang to 15,000 people at the Toronto music festival, and was for years _ a prominent singer at the great oratorio per - formances. .

Madame Christine Nilsson, or -the Countess de Miranda, has lately been in Sweden, her native country. She has contributed to the' musical section of , the Stockholm Exposition many'souvenirs of her career. She no longer sings in public, and the'only occasion on which her voice has been heard in a long time by many people was during the recent visit to her country. In response to the enthusiastic greeting of a number of students in one of the university towns, she sang a familiar Swedish folk song. In an obscure corner of the Alleghany Cemetery, in Pittsburg, is a neglected grave, the sleeping place of America’s greatest song writer, Stephen Collins Foster, the man who composed “Way Down upon the Suwannee Eiver,” “ Old Black Joe,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and scores of melodies, all of them more distinctly American than the product of any other song writer. If a band of patriotic citizens have their way Foster’s fame will be marked by a suitable monument. Some time ago a fund was started, and upon its completion arrangements will be made for the erection of the proposed monument.

In a chat with the representative of a London paper, Mr Ivan Caryll, the well known composer. of comic opera, told the following story;—“ My first appointment was at the Prince of Wales’s, during the run'of Dorothy: and at that time, although I had been in England some time, I could not speak your language. I was only allowed one rehearsal; and at the performance I can assure you. I did not understand a word of what was being said on the stage; and you can imagine the difficulty I had in coming in with the music at the proper time. I had arranged to take my cue from a certain movement of the stage manager’s hand, and I sat watching him like some haggard prisoner following word by word the judge’s summing up. The perspiration stood in beads on my forehead the whole evening; and Ben Davies, who was in the cast, can tell you some funny stories about that part of my career.”

Many neople maintain (says the New York Sun) that comic opera has seen its best days. It has gone out of fashion, they believe, just as its earlier forms of the Offenbach period have declined. The quality of librettos how is the subject of complaint from the public as well as the newspaper writers. There has been no improvement in them, if they have not steadily grown worse. There are no new composers to take the place of those who were active when comic opera was at the height of its popularity. There are no successors to Strauss, Milloeckar, or Von Suppe. Zeller showed great promise in one conventional work, but his second

was a diluted imitation of what he j } 3a( j before accomplished. None of the new comic operas produced from time to time i in Germany hold the stage for any length :of time. A fairly large number of new works are sung every year, but all the older Viennese works, revivals of Offenbach, and the Gilbert and Sullivan series must be called upon in order to fill out the repertoires. Even London musical farce has been taken to Vienna and I No one (writes the Eev H. E, Haweis) I has owed more to his artistes than Richard I Wagner. To play his music it is not enough to play the notes and keep awake; every I artiste must he inspired with his intention. I Wagner’s band is not so much like an I army with fixed tactics as a special corps of i picked marksmen; never for a moment must attention flag or vigilance be relaxed. At first trained operatic singers declined parts which were hard to learn and thankless to sing (so they held). Strictly vocal passages seldom occurred in Wagner s musical dramas. The very attitudes which the actors were called upon to assume sometimes rendered the singing almost impossible. The Ehine maidens, for instance, had to pour forth the most complicated strains while clasped in wire hoops in order to he swung up and down from the bottom of the Ehine to the top. They appear to the audience to be swimming in the depths of dim green water. The ladies, some of them rather heavy, when they saw the cages they were expected to trust their corporations to, at first absolutely declined; and it is commonly said that Wagner, after fuming and threatening, arguing and consoling in vain, as a last resource went down on his knees and with tears implored the ladies to make tho attempt. After that no Ehine girl ever found it in her heart to refuse ; and Ehine girls ever since have learned to be swung about uncomplainingly, like Eastern fakirs with a hook in the back.