MUSIC.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4407, 13 July 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

MUSIC.

NOTES BY G STRING. Senor Sarasate will be in London this summer." In two years Sarasate will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance as a child before Queen Isahella; who presented the bov with a gengm e Stradivarius. Ten years ago, Madame Adelina Patti recently told an interviewer, she created the feminine title-role in Gounod’s opera “Romeo and Juliet” at the Paris Opera. Madame Patti has no belief in eating and drinking anything ” special before Singing. "I eat what I please,” s he said. “Never have taken voice lozenges or any such thing. If one is,in health, one. sings; if not, one doesn’t—viola tout.” Much the same applies to practising. The great singer told the interviewer that she practises as she feels' inclined, sometime s ten minutes or a quarter of an hour in the morning, never more. “But, then,” she said, with a smile, “I have been lucky, and never have had to bother much about lessons. Some people’s voices ar e hard, and require tremendous work to make them soft and flexible.” She confessed her preference for Wagner’s music, if it were not such a terrible strain on her voice. 4 • « • • •'

Miss Violet Mount, who" has removed to Auckland, intends to give a concert in that city shortly.

Sir Arthur Sullivan’s last completed work was, like his first composition, intended for the use of the Church. In this instance the setting of the “Te Doum” has a special significance, as it is intended to be used as a song of thanksgiving for the conclusion of the South African war. Following an established custom, Sullivan has, in thig work, made free use of a well-known hymn tune, his sotting of the Rev. S. Baring Gould's “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” the “Marseillaise,” as it has been called, of the Church militant. .The “Te Deum” is essentially of a military character.

It certainly cannot be said that Verdi, in death afay more than in life, is without honour in his own country. First, the Italian Senate has declared the house at Le Roncole, where the composer was born, to be national property. Then Trieste is not only going to call a. street By his name, hut the town theatre as well. Rome, too, is to have a Strada Verdi; . busts of the master are to be placed in the park and on Monte Pincio; and a memorial tablet is to bo affixed to the house where he stayed in 1859. Moreover, there is to be a Verdi monument in the Eternal City, and already the Academy of St. Cecilia, directed bv Sgambati, has subscribed two thousand francs towards it. • * • * •

In a leading London Church it was once the cus'tom for the congregation to remain after the evening service while, the organist played a few organ selections. To this custom the sexton seriously objected. He declared that the committee, in their great-care in preparing the specification of stops for the organ, had entirely overlooked the most important stop of all—-the nine o’clock stop. ••■* • - *

It is proposed at the annual conference of th©, Incorporated Society of MusiciaqA, to be held in London in Janu'ary next, to give an orchestral concert at which only new and untried orchestral'works will be'performed. It is intended to give preference to orchestral compositions that might not otherwise secure opportunities of performance. The committee of selection are Messrs Randegger, Riseley, and Halford. This will be an exceptional opportunity for young composers to make their talent known.

Of Herr Emil Sauer, who is one of the greatest living virtuosi, a critic writes; —“The criticisms I have read give rather a one-sided impression of his playing. One would think that he i s a terrible pianoforte pounder. So he is sometimes. But there are two separate and distinct Sauers. One lashes himself up into a kind of technical rage, and you reel that the piano is having rather a bad time of it; the other Sauer has an amazingly beautiful touch and an agility of techniaue which can stand comparison with that of any pianist I know, even Busoni. Sauer’s violence is feminine, whereas his delicacy is masculine. He does not seem to me to have any very distinguished’views of masterpieces. His Chopin is exaggerated, the Sonata in B flat minor was not at all satisfactory, except perhaps the Doppio movement. The Scherzo was matter of fact, and the final Presto was a mere etude, which I do not think Chopin meant. But in Schubert’s Sonata in B flat he was much more spontaneous, and the only fault was an excess of delicacy. If you want to hear Sauer at his best, however, you must he patient, and wait until ne arrives at his own compositions and Liszt transcriptions. He is then the virtuoso pure and simple, and I liked him best thus.”