VIENNESE BOYS' CHOIR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22256, 2 November 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

VIENNESE BOYS' CHOIR

SOUTHERN DATES ANNOUNCED TRIUMPHAL EUROPEAN TOUR Tho world-famous Viennese Boys' Choir, which opens a Dominion tour at Auckland on Wednesday, has, for more than four centuries, fulfilled its ecclesiastical and scholastic functions. It disappeared with tho Hapsburg monarchy at the close of the World War, and was restored six years luter. For two years Father Schnitt met tho expenses out of his private funds and then the choir launched out to support itself, and turned to secular music. All the boys go to tho same school that choir boys have attended for four centuries. Tho boys leave tho choir at 15, but remain at school until they aro eighteen years of age. Messrs.-Tait will present tho lads at Auckland from November G to 13, Hamilton on November 14, l'almcrston North, November 16, Hastings, November 18, Wanganui, November 19, Hawera, November 20, Now Plymouth, November 21, Marton, November 22, Wellington, November 23 to 30, Blenheim, December 2, Nelson, December 3, Westport, December 4, Greymouth, December 5 and 6, Christehurch, December 7 and 13, Ashburton, December 14, Timaru, December 16, Oamaru, December 17, lnvercargill, December 1 ( J and 20, Dunedin, December 21 to 27, Gore, Decern her 28.

Last year in the course of a triumphal tour of the European capitals the choir sang lo an English audience for tho first tiino at Queen's Hall, London, and achieved an instant success. Commenting on the opening performance The Times said: —"These Sangerknaben appeal to English audiences no doubt partly because their singing is so unlike that of English boys; and, possessing a style of our own in boys' singing, we are the better able to appreciate that pf other people, but still more perhaps because their training, so far from curbing spontaneity of expression, liberates it. Whether they are singing polyphonic motets of the sixteenth century, or arrangements by Brahms and others of folk songs, or transcriptions of the waltzes of Joliann Strauss, they seem genuinely impelled by the style of the music. They delighted tho audience with liberal selections in all these different styles. "After the interval the choir became an opeio company. Exchanging their sailor suits for the costumes appropriate to an eighteenth century court, they sang and acted with remarkable spirit and skill. Theirs was an artistic entertainment of a very high order."