MR H. WEIR’S MATINEE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1056, 26 May 1892, Page 16

MR H. WEIR’S MATINEE.

Although the weather on Thursday afternoon was distinctly unpropitious, Mr H. Weir had a very fair audience nevertheless for his musical matinee in Thomas’ Hall, about 150 persons being present. The concert, which proved very enjoyable, was brought within the compass of rather less than an hour and a half. Madame Goldenstedt was in fine voice, and carried off the vocal honours, her very artistic execution of Gounod’s lovely ‘ Ave Maria’ rendering it the gem of the concert. Mr A. F. Hill played the violin obbligato. The audience responded with a double encore, but the fair songstress merely bowed her acknowledgments. In the second part of the programme she substituted ‘ The Last Rose of Summer ’ for Piccolomini’s * Eternal Rest,’ and again received the warm applause of the audience, whose prompt recal was this.time honored with a repetition of the second stanza of the song. Mr Weir was, of course, the heaviest, contributor to the programme, no less than six songs being placed opposite his name. The first three were bracketed together, viz. : —‘ Marie ’ and ‘Dedication’ by Robert Franz, and 1 O Lay Thy Cheek’ by Schonberger. Mr Weir deserves every credit for introducing to the public the chaste and high class lyric works of so prolific and talented a composer as Franz, whom competent critics rank with Schubert and Schumann. His songs, of which there are upwards of 250 extant, are all marked by clear and simple melody and refined taste, and yet, singularly enough, they are but rarely heard at colonial concerts. The pieces selected by Mr Weir were hardly suited to his style. They abound with piano passages, and in these passages the singer’s, voice does not seem to carry, while the enunciation is indistinct. The same remark applies to his rendering of ‘ The Sun was Setting ’ (Solomon). Mr Weir also sang a pretty little morceau by Mr Alfred F. Hill, entitled ‘ Cowherd's Song in a Foreign Land,’ to which the gifted young composer played a very effective violin obligato. It is, however, in songs of a declamatory or dramatic style that Mr Weir is heard to most signal and this fact was exemplified by the reception given to his execution of the spirited invocation ‘ To Zeus,’ from Gade's cantata ‘Psyche.’ It was sung in first-class style, and commanded an encore, in compliance with which a portion of it was repeated. Two duets figured upon th? programme, th<?

better one being. undoubtedly ‘ The Wing of the Dove' (M. Watson), which was sweetly rendered by Messrs E. J. Hill and H. Weir, the Voices of the singers blending very agreeably. The other duet was Wade’s ‘l’ve Wandered in Dreams,’ a meretricious piece, in which'the voices of Madame Goldenstedt and Mr Weir did not chord at all well. Mr Alfred F. Hill furnished a couple of violin solos, the first being his own delightful little ‘ Albnmblatt ’ which he gave at his introductory recital in Wellington, and the other being a graceful mazurka by his old Leipsic master, Hans Sitt. The mazurka evoked an encore, which Mr Hill acknowledged bv playing another piece by Sitt. viz., a lanr’ler, a kind of dance tuns greatly affected by the Styrian peasants. Mr Robert Parker played the pianoforte accompaniments with his accustomed taste.