MUSIC

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1687, 29 June 1904, Page 30

MUSIC

NOTES BY 8 STRINB Mr Watkin Mills, who is considered the foremost English basso of the pre.-ent day, made his debut with the Royal Choral Society at the Albert Hall on IN'ew Year’s Day, 1885, in a -csCst which .included Madame Patey .and Mr Edward Lloyd. He has been prominently before the English public ever since, and has sung on hundreds of great occasions, including the oratorio festivals at Birmingham, Leeds, the Crystal Palace (Handel Festival), and other great centres. His first tour of the United States was in 1894 for the festivals at Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Pittsfield, and the tour he has just concluded forms his eighth visit to America and Canada. Mr Mills was born at Painswick, on the Cotswold. Hills, and studied under Dr Samuel Sebastian Wesley and Eidwin Holland, and in Milan under Federico Blasco.

M. Jean de Reszke has received 490 applications from students wishing to join, his school of singing in Paris. Lessons will be two guineas each. The musical festival in Queen's Hail, London, organised by Herr Kruse, formerly of Melbourne, appears to have bsen a pronounced success. The leading feature Was .the magnificent singing of the Sheffield Chorus. They had no easy task, for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and his - Mass in D formed part of the programme; and no more exacting works were ever written, from the chorister’s point of view. These Yorkshiremen, however, seem to have revelled in their difficulties, and fairly vanquished the critics. Herr Weingartner, who was conducting, is said to have characterised their singing as wonderful. Madame Freid-Guiselcla, a German soprano from America, intends giving a series of concerts in Australia. M. Edouard Colonne, the eminent French conductor, who directed several concerts of the New York Philharmonic series, says he cannot understand why a country like the United States should be without an endowed conservatory ot music.

Dr Elgar, the coming man amongst English musicians, has been knighted. “When in doubt, play Elgar,” is the advice of one English paper „to the musical societies* of* Great Britain. "LHe Apostles,” recently performed at New York with great applause, had already aroused interest in Germany; and “The Dream of Gerontius” is rapidly achieving European popularity. An interesting interview article in the r ‘Stran<l’ informs us that Dr Elgar is intending to complete a musical, trilogy by two further oratorios, to folloiv “The Apostles. Mr Marshaii-Hall’s new “Symphony in E flat,” jiroduced in Melbourne recently, is highly spoken of. The “Australasian” &ays: _‘*lt abounds with effective melodic material, some of which is of high order of musical invention. The best themes are to be found mainly in the slow second section, and in the bright and beautiful last movement. There is also an abundance of bold effects in orchestration, with some vivid colouring, which, whether harmonic or orchestral, testifies to the sound scholarship of the composer ’ Messrs W. H. Paling and Cc., of Sydney, publish the “Debutante Valse ” composed by licne Desjardins, and dedicated to Lady Northcote. The new valse opens melodiously, and has a particularly bright and gladsome theme marked “dolce.” The rhythm throughout it wellmarked, so that the “Debutante” should prove popular in the ballroom.