MADAME TASCA'S CONCERT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 790, 23 October 1878, Page 2

MADAME TASCA'S CONCERT.

The Volunteer Hall wa3 well-filled last night on the occasion of the Tasca concert, and, as the audience was a mixed one, it angured well for the ability of the performers that they were able to rivet profound attention during the performance to some of the most classical pieces on the programme. The concert opened with a recit and aria by Mozart, which was sung by Mldle. Rosaly Merz. It was certainly a novel idea to place a piece first upon a concert programme in which success depends upon tasteful singing, which was as impossible to attain to perfection as it was to hear it, in consequence of the noise necessarily made during the process of the audience being seated. Notwithstanding this drawback, Miss Merz proved herself capable of correctly interpreting high-class music. The playing of the pianoforte solo—" Spinlied " (Litolff) and " Pasquinade " ( Gottschalk) —by Madame Tasca at once demonstrated conclusively the fact that we were listening to a player quite as excellent as she had been represented to be. Madame Tasca sacrifices all the conventional ideas of excellence of position, becomes devoted to her task, and is apparently oblivious of everything else until it is over. The most difficult arpeggio passages, in the case of either hand, are executed with elegant precision ; and, although to many they may resemble pianoforte exercises whilst on paper, when transferred to the instrument by Madame Tasca, they are full of melody. She strikes chords, not as arpeggios, but simultaneously, and we confess that we like the change. Mdlle. Merz sang another of her German songs—" Bliimlein Traut " (Gounod), and, although to our mind, Mozart's beautifully simple melody was incomparably the better performance in every respect of the two, she by its singing grew in favor with the audience. Beethoven's now well-known "Moonlight Sonata," by Madame Tasca, was the next piece. The adagio movement seems simple enough ; but it is not so ; and it is indeed very seldom that it is played sufficiently well to thoroughly satisfy the hypercritical. In it everything depends upon expression. Its simple passages require to be endued with life ; or the performance will prove flat and uninteresting. Madame Tasca is, of course, far beyond ordinary professionals, even in the matter of expression : but she excels in the rapidity and clearness of her execution. The allegretto and trio pleased us greatly. The deliberation with which they were played seemed consistent with the'meaning of the whole composition, and l'vule the concluding presto movement stand (;,it in greater relief. In the second part, Madame Tasca played a fantasia based upon ; selections from "Rigoletto" (Liszt), "Home Sweet Home" for the left hand (Thalberg), "Hibernian Echoes," and, as one of her encores, a fantasia of Scotch airs. In the performance of the second piece, the performer displayed wonderful celerity in the use of her left hand, and an aptitude in the execution of the greatest difficulties that could only have been acquired by untiring practice. We need scarcely say that when Mada.me Tasca strayed from the track of really classical music and plaj'ed pieces in which some well-known national melodies could be detected amongst a flood of embellishments, the hands and feet of the audience were unloosed and universal applause was the result. Mdlle. Merz sang the "Cuckoo Song" (Abt), and "Sing on my little bird" (Plumpton) so nicely that she gained increased favor at the hands of the audience. We must accord praise to Mr. Plumpton for his cleverly played accompaniments. We have never heard anybody play so carefully and deferentially who could claim to be such a master of the pianoforte. We have every reason to be highly gratified with Madame Tasca and her company. Since the time that Madame Arabella Goddard visited us we have never heard such pianoforte playing.