WORLD OF MUSIC

Southland Times, Issue 19291, 9 July 1924, Page 10

WORLD OF MUSIC

At Home and Abroad

(By

"Andante.”)

The success of the xvonie musical season' has been Wolff-Ferrari’s new Venetian opera, "I Quattro Rusteghi.” the plot taken from a comedy by Goldoni. It was performed by a special company on its tour. The music was found refreshing though not entirely original. Albert Elkus's “Impressions of a Greek Tragedy” was played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, under Walter Henn- Rothwell, March 21-22. The San Francisco Chronicle calls the Californian a composer of genius. Antonio Cortis, tenor, of Barcelona, will make his American debut with the Chicago Civic Opera Company at the Auditorium in the spring. Cortis has been engaged for the entire season 1924-25 for the Italian section of the repertoire. He is said to have a fine stage presence and a voice both pleasing and powerful. He has sung in opera in South and Central America, Cuba. Spain and Portugal. Sonya Mitchell, of New York, who sailed for Europe on April 9, will be soloist with the Vienna Symphony orchestra and will also be fyeard in Paris and Florence, where she plans to study with Pizzetti. Leopold Stokowski, director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, received a letter from Sir Hugh Allen, announcing his nomination as Fellow of the Royal College of London, of which the Prince of Wales is President. Mr Stokowski was born in London and is a graduate of the Royal College and of Oxford University. Miss Rosa Alba, the Australian song stress, appears to have established herself firmly in London. Amongst the many Press notices about her singing, one reads: "A coloratura soprano—the first of weight from Australasia. A voice of rare and beautiful quality, which finds its perfect expression in coloratura singing” ; and "the fascinating ease” of the soprano's singing was. taken all round, appreciatively commented upon. The late Signora Duse had ideas concerning artists and their art (says the Paris Stoi). And she did not hesitate to put them into practice, for in a theatrical career extending over fifty years she performed in public, according to an intimate friend of hers, who has taken the trouble of going into the matter, only 1965 times, an average of fewer than forty appearances on the stage per year. “True art cannot be produced to order,” she wrote on one occasion to the person in question. “Great poets cannot command inspiration at a fixed hour, and genius does not, as a matter of course, possess dramatic artists every evening between the hours of 8 and 12. Consequently I appear only when the mood seizes me, and sometimes for weeks on end I must confess the stage has little appeal for me as an actress.” ABOUT NEW SONGS. SPIRITUALS AND OTHERS. It may be freely admitted that so far as this part of the world is concerned the Negro spirituals are new. In the old days plantation ditties and coon songs enjoyed a great vogue, but interest in them was rapidly worn out, largely because it will be found, they had nothing behind them. They were superficial and their charm was shallow, easily plumbed after a little while, then came silence. America has now given us something much more beautiful, more substantial —the real folk music of the soil. H. T. Burleigh did the world a great service when he gave the spirituals of the Negroes permanence in a series of settings which retained all the natural beauties of the original melodies and supported them with apt accompaniments. Ricordi’s have published an attractive array of Burleigh’s work and some of them, notably “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Go Down, Moses,” “By-and-By” and “I Got a Robe” are well known in these islands. American musicians have not allowed this field to remain the monopoly of Burleigh, and in the new lists are some spirituals, equally characteristic and equally beautiful, though the scoring is entirely distinctive. Harvey B. Gaul, in “Go Till it on the Mountains” (published by the Oliver Ritson Company of Boston), has recovered for us a Christmas song, which has a strange haunting charm. This is a song in which a tenor or a soprano will find scope for some exquisite effects, particularly in the passages hummed in the concluding movement, which finalises in an extremely effective phrase. These spirituals must be sung simply and earnestly. They are marked by rhymthic, and their treatmen’ demands smoothness, with an entire absence of dramatic emphasis, though they have to be coloured if the proper atmosphere is to be caught. The range in the high setting is D flat to G flat. Dvorak’s New World Symphony is a work expressive of the composer’s reaction to the United States and in that work the Largo is one of the high points, if not the highest point of the peasant composer’s genius. William Arms Fisher has used this Largo for a spiritual called “Goin’ Home,” which is strangely true to type and very beautiful in expression. This is not surprising. Dvorak’s Largo was inspired by the Negro spiritual, though it does not use any of the Negro themes, and Fisher, who was his pupil, has, in a sense, completed the Bohemian’s picture. I’ is a spiritual full of tragic longing for home and rest, concluding on a note of quiet resignation and confidence. Here again simplicity in treatment is demanded, particularly in the middle section, where a tendency to give added weight and speed must be controlled if the ruminative mood of the spiritual is not to be spoiled. (Oliver Ditson Company!. Sacred songs in the Anglo-Saxon style may be considered with these spirituals, particularly George B. Nevins "We go this way hut Once,” which is an expressive little song demanding quiet, treatment, though with a shade more dramatic movement, and with a freer use of the rubato. This is a song suited to all voices, moderate in range (B flat to E flat in the low setting' and simple without descending to triviality. There is more substance in “Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled.” a setting of John XIV. 1. 2,3, by Stanley T. Rieff. The composer in general treatment has stood to the conventional form, but without losing a freshness in detail which will be appreciated by singers of sacred music. The song works up to a fine climax, the inspiration of confidence through the encouraging “Believe in Me.” This work is also in two keys and is suited to all voices. All these songs come from the Oliver Ditson Company of Boston. AN ANCIENT POST. THE MASTER OF KING’S MUSICK. His Majesty the Fling has appointed Sir Edward Elgar, 0.M.. ‘Master of the King’s Musick.” in place of Sir Walter Parratt, recently deceased. It is a very honourable and ancient post, and all will agree that there exists no person so admirably fitted in all ways to fill that post and to fulfil its obligations, says the Daily Telegraph. For Sir Edward Elgar himself occupies a place in the hearts of all of us that is not only unique at the moment, but has rarely if ever existed previously. Truly and deservedly he stands for the best in English music, and this by common consent. More of his music has passed into the language, as it were, than that of any of his contemporaries. and he is universally accepted as the personification of English music—the greatest since Phrcell. As to the origin and the functions of honourable office, the writer says:—

Long ago Edward IV. had his 13 minstrels, "whereof some be trompets, some with shelmes and smalle pypes,” while Henry VIII.’s band included 15 trumpets and 10 sackbuts, besides rebecks, taborets, and other long-forgotten instruments. Violins seem to have been introduced by Queen Elizabeth, or, rather, the name is first mentioned in the list of her band; but Charles 11. established a band of 24 performers on violins, tenors and basses —a band that possibly was the first to be employed regularly to play at meal-time. At the present time “the King’s Band of Music,” as it is technically described, consists of some 30 instruments, “so as to meet the requirements of modern music.” Its duties are to assist, chiefly, if not entirely, at Royal weddings and other similar State functions. Sir Edward Elgar, ;n his new appointment, follows many musicians who have left their mark in our musical history. Among the earliest is Thomas Purcell (1672), brother of the more illustrious Henry Purcell, John Eccles, Maurice Greene, William Boyce, William Shield and Francois Cramer all bore honourable names, and the name of Sir Walter Parratt is another to add to the list.