VIENNA BOYS' CHOIR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22260, 7 November 1935, Page 16

VIENNA BOYS' CHOIR

OPENING OF SEASON

A NOTABLE CONCERT INTERPRETATIVE ARTISTRY Auckland music-lovers were provided with an entirely new experience last night, when the Vienna Boys' Choir gave its opening concert of its season in His Majesty's Theatre before a large and very enthusiastic audience. As an entertainment the performance was a complete novelty, not only because the singers were boys trained as none are in this part of the world, but also by reason of the wide range of seldomheard music which the programme embraced. Beginning with religious compositions of the 16th century, it passed by way of Mozart and Schubert to Austrian folk-songs and vocal renderings of the better-known airs of Johann Strauss.

The ehoir, which numbers 18 and is composed of boys between the ages of nine and 12, arrived from Sydney by the Wanganella j-esterday after a very successful three months' tour of Australia. It will spend fiveVeeks in New Zealand.

Of the many factors which go to make a pleasing and successful musical performance, the most important is that combination of colouring, intensifying and shading, and these boys, by admirably fulfilling these requirements, revealed the spirit of every style of music performed. Throughout the programme the most notable features were good team work and a wonderful power of expression. Old Church Music < In the " Motets," which included "Repleti Sunt" and "Ascendit Deus," both by J. Gallus, also "Tenebrae Factae Sunt," by J. L. de Victoria, the boys sang? with a perfect under* standing of the polyphonic style, while in Mozart's music, which calls for the finest execution—beautiful, expressive and intelligent—the choir did not swerve by a hair's breadth from perfection. In the third part of the programme a new light was thrown on the "popular" melodies of Strauss. The treatment of "The Blue Danube," for instance, was such that it was most enjoyable. The young singers surmounted the technical difficulties with great credit to themselves and gave a most artistic rendering. Other items included in the programme were "God in Nature" and "Hark, Hark, the Lark" (Schubert), "Cradle Song of the Virgin Mary" (Max Reger), "A Hunter Went a Hunting," "Madele ruck, ruck, ruck," both Austrian folk songs, and "Roses from the South" (Strauss). Among the many encores special mention must be made of "Pizzicato polka,", in which number the accelerandos and rallentandos, crescendos and diminuendos were mastered in excellent , style and the staccato singing was -done with apparent ease and perfect control. A Mozart Operetta Perhaps the most charming part of the evening's entertainment was the ; cne-act operetta, "Reconciliation," by ' Mozart. It was a domestic comedy, played in the dress of the period. Half the boys at least had feminine roles. They acted most naturally and with evident enjoyment, and wore their pompadour wigs and hooped skirts to the manner born. Even one who had to impersonate a middle-aged lady seemed quite at home in the character, and another was excellent as an old physician in a periwig, who made great play with a spoon and a very large bottle of medicine. Two more, as eighteenthcentury gallants, made love with gentlemanv ardour, and the Dresden-china atmosphere was beautifully enhanced by the music, which was .Mozart in his most vivacious mood. One of the "ladies" earned a round of applause by exclaiming in English, after her lover had departed in a huff, "Ah! these men! They shout so easily!"

Accompanying the choir are the Rev. Father J. Schnitt. director. Mr. Victor Gomboz, musical director, Mr. J. Kodytek, tutor, and Madame F. Marsi, who was responsible for making tho original arrangements to bring the choir to Australia and New Zealand. At midday the members of the partv were received at the Town Hall by the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis.

Another passenger on the Wanganella was Mr. Claude Kingston, concert director for J. and N. Tait, who has come to the Dominion from Perth to supervise the tour of the choir. In Australia, said Mr. Kingston, the receipts from the performances given by the choir were 20 per cent in excess of those of the Sistine Choir, which had visited the Commonwealth about 12 years ago.