MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 86

MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS

— Your voice," says Sir Charles Santley, in a chapter addressed "To the Pupil," m his book on "The Art ot* Singing," "is not your possession ; it is a seod intrusted to your ca.ro to cultivate that it may growup a fruitful tree. The metier of art is not to make money for the professors of art; it is a D-ivin-e office; its .productions . . . are meant to satisfy the craving 3 of the purely artistic soul, and to solace the soul to which the seed from which art fruifc is produced has been denied." ' — Th>& Princess Friedrich Luitpold, sister of the Kaiserin, one of whose compositions "was recently performed at a sacred concert at Dresden, is the latest recruit to the ranks of royal composers who have challenged public oriticiam. The Duchess of Orleans, eldest daughter of the Archduke Joseph of Austria, has won golden opinions by her charming songs, many of them set to Hungarian words; the Archduchess Marie Valeric of Austria has also composed a number of pretty songs ; the Princess Feodora of Reuss (a Princess of Saxe-Meiningen) is credited with considerable talent and originality in composition); and the Grand Dnoftess Oyril of Russia also possesses considerable gifts as a composer. .The blind Landgraf of Hesse-Oassel ja con.eideral to be the most talented of all royal musicians. His many compositions, chiefly produced at Paris, are very highly esteemed by experts. ~~