MISS VERA MOORE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20361, 19 March 1928, Page 12

MISS VERA MOORE.

ANOTHER TOUR OF NEW ZEALAND. EXPERIENCES IN VIENNA. (From Oue Own Coe respondent.) LONDON, February 8. Misa Vera Moore (formerly of Dux* edin) contemplates another tour in New Zealand during the present year, so that music-lovers will be on tlm lookout for her arrival about the end of July t>r the beginning of August. She hopes to spend three months in the Dominion. At the present time Miss Moore is in Vienna, whither she went in November, for further study and in order to gam still wider musical experience. She is playing a great deal of sonata and chamber music there with Frau_ Marie Soldat Roger, who was a pupil of Joachim and a friend of Brahms, with whoni she often played all his sonatas. It is interesting to recall that it was she whom Brahms asked to try over with him the violin arrangement of his E fiat Clarinet Sonata before it went to print, and of her Joachim remarked: “ When die Soldat pla3 - s the Brahms Concerto I lay down my bow! ” Miss Moore says that Frau Roger, at the age of 65, is still strong and vigorous, and is playing gloriously. Frau Roger and Miss Moore have been several times to play at the Palais Wittgenstein, which was built by Marie Theresa for her Prime Minister. Haydn has conducted there, and Mozart has often played there. It is wonderful,” writes Miss Moore, “ how the spirits of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, seem in Vienna so vital and alive. It is a glorious atmosphere, and I am revelling in it all. The opera, too, is a wonderful attraction, with such singers as Schumann. Lehmann, Nildenburg, Duhan, Mayr, Piccaver, and Manowarda, and conductors who include Schalk and Strauss. They are heard here at their very beet.” Apart from music, there are the splendid art galleries. Not even in Madrid can one see such work of Valesquez as are hung in the Kunsthistorisehe Museum, while the bast Durer drawings are also at Vienna, in the Aiberfiua Museum. The city, too, is beautifully laid out with parka and squares, and is surrounded by the hills—the Wiener Wald—where Beethoven loved to walk. At tho end of May Miss Moore will leave Austria for her tour. She will give pianoforte recitals in Colombo and iu Australia on her way to New Zealand. From August to November she should be in the Dominion, and in mid-December she is due to give a series of four recitals in Cumberland. Engagements are already being booked for 1925, During the pest year mc.nv opportunities have come enabling this studious New Zealand pianist to gain further musical experience and knowledge. She was specially delighted at being asked to do the Mozart Quintet in E flat major with such beautiful wind players as Leon Goossens (oboe) F. Wood (bassoon), Haydn Draper (clarinet! and _ Aubrey Brain (horn), at a chamber music concert at Haslemcre. So successful was one of Miss Moore’s recitals in London in October that it had to be repeated a week later, each time to a capacity audience. Of her recital at Newbury that followed, the musical critic of the local News wrote: ‘ “ It is not often that a pianoforte recital appeals almost entirely to the aesthetic sense. Too often the listener’s chief emotion is amazement at the wonderful dexterity of tho pianist’s fingers or at the colossal volume of tone that can be produced from a modern grand pianoforte. Sometimes, too, one’s enjoyment of the music is lessened by tho freakish mannerisms of tho player. “ There were none of these distractions in the playing of Miss Vera Moore. Dexterity of technique and ample volume of tone were in evidence, but were never thrust upon tho listeners. It was the interpretation of the music that was tho whole concern of the artist at the piano, and the result was an hour and a quarter of sheer delight. The recital opened with three Bach n umbel’s—all so beautifully played that one could have wished that tho whole programme was to be devoted to the works of that incomparable master. However, Beethoven’s Sonata in K flat (Op. 27, No. 1) which followed, showed that Miss Moore was equally successful in the interpretaton of that composer. The next number was Brahms variations on an original theme —a work demanding considerable technical skill, _ but still mor* mental grasp and poetic insight.