Notes on Musica' (and Unmusical) Affairs.

Otago Witness, Issue 1813, 20 August 1886, Page 29

Notes on Musica' (and Unmusical) Affairs.

*k* John Field, the composer of the beautiful "divertimento" mentioned above, is thus highly estimated by an excellent authority :— " Both as a composer and pianist he may be regarded as the forerunner of Chopin ; he added • a new department to piano music by his dreamy and graceful nocturnes. His playing was noted for its exquisite feeling and irresistibly sympathetic touch ; he wrote many concertos, sonatas, &c. ; but his fame rests upon the smaller class of compositions already mentioned." *$* How Field ever came to be called a Scotchman is at present a puzzle to us. Possibly he was born of Scottish parents, but there is no doubt about this, that he was born in Dublin in 1782, that he became a pupil of Clementi, in London, and with him started in 1802 for Russia, spending a considerable time in France and Germany on the way. The next thirty years he spent entirely in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and only visited London in 1832 whilst on a European tour; in 1837 he was found in a hospital at Naples by some Russians, who took him back to Moscow, where he died the same year. It is obviously absurd to claim Field as a Scotch musician, even if his parents were as Scotch as they could possibly be ;— but perhaps he has been claimed as a Scotchman, upon the lucus a non lucendo principle, because Scotland was the only country that he never set foot upon ! *#* " Italianation" is a humorous new-coined word that is now in use in the old country, and it is a very expressive term for the notions that are crystalized into it. It gives the idea of the assumption of sham Italian names by musicians who in reality are pure-bred cockneys, or Britishers of some sort. The fault has hardly been so much with the people that have assumed the pretentious names as j with that silly section of the public that would persist in thinking that nothing could be worth going to hear unless performed by somebody with a high-sounding Italian name ; consequently if either plain William Green or Mr John Campbell happened to be blessed with a fine voice, he, till lately, found it necessary to dub himself Signor Gulielmo Verdi or Signor Giovanni Campobello before the British public would pay to hear him sing. A reaction, however, against " Italianation" has at last set in, says the Musical Times, and Signor Verdi and Signor Campobello now appear on " posters" as Mr Green or Mr Campbell, with their former Italian titles following in brackets, merely for purposes of identification. Such a decrease of humbug is some slight compensation for the collapse of Italian opera. *#* Those who were present in Westminster Abbey on Ascension Day are to be envied. The choirs of the Abbey, of the Chapel Royal, of Lincoln's Inn, and a strong contingent from the choir of Novello's Oratorio Concerts, performed the second and third parts of Gounod's " Mors et Vita," and Dr Bridge's setting of Gladstone's Latin version of the hymn, " Rock of Ages." Albani took the soprano solo music in Gounod's work, and afterwards sang, " I know that my Redeemer liveth." The orchestra was a very fine one, and was conducted by Dr Bridge, and the versatile G. O. M. was present. At the close of the service the " Old Hundredth " was sung by the vast congregation, the orchestra accompanying. At the offertory £500 was collected for the benefit of the neighbouring hospital. *** "The Mikado" and "Trial by Jury" have recently been performed by DOyly Carte's Company at the Wallner Theatre, Berlin, before crowded houses, although all the performances were in English. A regular run of Gilbert and Sullivan's joint productions was expected to be secured when the mail left.