ELGAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 102, 21 July 1927, Page 12

ELGAR

SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY OF CELEBRATED COMPOSER

A GREAT WRITER In 1887 a journal called "The Magazine of Music” offered a prize of £ 5 for the best song sent in. The winner was, to quote the journal, "a promising young "Worcester musician, Mr. Edward Elgar.” A few weeks ago the English musical world commenced to celebrate the seventieh birthday of Sir Edward Elgar, 0.M., generally acknowledged as the greatest of living English composers. Although only regarded as "a promising young musician,” Edward Elgar, at that time, or shortly afterwards, had written such fine works as his "Serenade” (for string orchestra), the "Froisart” overture, and many exquisite trifles such as "Salut d’ Amour,” "Chanson de Nuit,” and others. Those latter, one would think, should have won him instant recognition as a composer of the popular kind. And even when, in later years, such a masterwork as “Gerontius” appeared at Birmingham Festival in 1900, real recognition of the composer was delayed. The "Dream” lay untouched for two years, until the late Auguste Jaeger brought it to the notice of friends in Germany, the result being its production at the Lower Rhine Festival in 1902. Richard Strauss hearing it there told England that it had produced a great composer. At the dinner after the official toasts had been proposed, Strauss surprised everyone by spontaneously proposing another toast. "I raise my glass,” he said, "to the welfare and success of the first English progressiveist, Meister Edward Elgar.”

Self-taught, self-centred and self-de-termined, Sir Edward Elgar was the son of a Roman Catholic Church organist at Broadheath, near Worcester. All though intended for law, he felt the call of music too strong to resist. He practically taught himself, learning to play six or seven instruments, though the violin was his chief study, and from the age of fifteen he maintained himself.

I-le received his knighthood in 1904 and in 1911 was appointed to the order of merit—the greatest honour so far bestowed upon an English musician.

An open-air organ, whose strains will be heard within a radius of five miles, will be erected at Kuffstein, in the Tyrol, as a memorial to German and Austrian soldiers who died in the World War. It will be equipped with three keyboards, eighty stops, and 4,000 organ pipes. It will cost about 250,000 Austrian schillings to build, apprbxinmtely £20,000.

Miss Ethel Osborn appears to have secured an established position in musical circles at Home. She is still associated with Dame Clara Butt, and, according to recent advices, was to have sung at a "Great Popular Concert” at the Crystal Palace on June 4, in company with the great contralto and Mr. Kenner ley Rumford. W. H. Squire, the ’cellist-composer, was also on the programme, and the London contingent of the Handel Festival Choir, under Walter Hedgcock, was to have taken part.

According to Ignaz Friedman, who participated at the Beethoven centenary celebrations at Vienna, the chorus who gave Beethoven's "Messe Solenelle” rehearsed it for a year. This, notwithstanding the fact that the chorus was composed of professional singers. To New Zealand musical organisations, who consider two or three months ample time in which to work up programmes, this should prove of interest.

On Saturday evening last the Society of Musicians, Wellington, celebrated the centenary of the death of Beethoven with a programme of works by the master. The assisting artists were Mrs. F. J. Woodward, Mrs. Wilfred Andrews, Mr. Roy Hill and Mr. Harrison Cook.

Heifetz, who is making his Australian and New Zealand tour under the noted J. and N. Tait management, will introduce another talented musician to these shores when he commences his series of recitals in the Dominion. His accompanist and pianoforte soloist, Isidor Achron, is a Russian musician who, like Heifetz, migrated to secure fame and fortune in the United States. "I always like the Isidor to be mentioned,” said Achron to a newspaper man, “for the reason that several rather amusing, and some awkward, mistakes have been made at various times. My brother Josef is a wellknown composer, and Heifetz plays several of his works in his present recitals.” After his Melbourne season, which is proving even more successful than the Sydney one, Heifetz proceeds to Tasmania, and on to New Zealand. There can be no return season, for the great violinist sails direct to America to fulfil engagements entered into some years back.

It is now definitely announced by Messrs. J. and N. Tait that they have arranged for the visit to New Zealand of Joseph Hislop, the celebrated operatic and concert tenor. Among the- few really great tenors of the present day Hislop justly holds one of the most prominent places in the esteem of the public, for not only is he a brilliant operatic artist, but he is equally great on the concert platform. Having these attributes he in many respects surpasses all rivals, and it is a matter for congratulation that he belongs to our own race, for Joseph Hislop was born in Edinburgh. In England he made an instantaneous success at Covent Garden, where he sang with Melba just after the war and was acclaimed as “a second Caruso.” He has sung with wonderful success in most of the leading opera houses and concerts halls of the world —Royal Onera, Cqvent Garden; Royal Albert Hall, London; Opera Comique, Paris; La Scala, Milan; La Monnaie, Brussels; Grand Opera, Stockholm; Grand Opera, Copenhagen; Ireland, Scotland, many cities of the United States, and in South America.

A feature of the forthcoming Auckland competitions which should meet with the approval of all music lovers is the choir section containing no less than eight different classes, including two for church choirs and five for school choirs. Many of the local schools are training choirs, one primary school having no less than five in training, while others will be represented by three or four. The society’s auction in fixing the festival dates to synchronise with the school holidays will have the approval of parents and of headmasters who disapprove of anything which interferes with the regular school routine. Entries- for the coming festival close on the 18th inst., and a great many of them are expected from outside the Auckland district. The railway department has arranged to carry at holiday excursion rates competitors from any part of the Dominion, and has extended the same privilege to parents or guardians of competitors under the age of 16 years.