The World of Music

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19626, 21 October 1933, Page 12

The World of Music

(By “Semitone”).

Notes and Comments of General Interest

Yehudi Menuihin’s long-awaited visit to Australia and New Zealand will eventuate In May, 1935, when he will open his tour at Sydney. Both Madame Amellta Galli-Curci and her husband, Mr. Homer Samuels, told the writer that this will be one of the greatest musical sensations ever experienced out here. The gifted young violinist will be 16 years of age by the time he arrives in Australia.

Brahms’ "Double Concerto in A Minor,” played by Jacques Thibaud (violin), Pablo Casals (violoncello) and the Pablo Casals Orchestra of Barcelona, conducted by Alfred Cortot, was the major work broadcast by IYA last Saturday. This fine concerto, composed in 1888, was Brahms’ last orchestral work, and was written for his friends, Joseph Joachim, the great violinist, and Robert Hausmann. the famous ’cellist. It is a work of great beauty and perfection of detail. The players give a superb reading of Brahms masterly score.

The new opera, “Moonflower,” composed by Gordon Mcßeth, the wellknown pianist and composer, of Wanganui, and which was produced to record houses by the Operatic Society of that city, is acclaimed by competent critics to be one of the best New Zealand musical productions to date. A selection arranged for military band by Bandmaster George Buckley from the piano score of "Moonflower” was recently played by the Wanganui Municipal Band.

Miss Sarah Stacpoole, soprano, and Mr. Reginald Morgan, baritone, will be the assisting artists at the Municipal Band concert In the Town Hah tomorrow night. The band will be heard in a selection from Chopin’s works entitled “Chopiniana,” a selection from the new opera, “Moonflower,” by McBeth, "Die Fledermaus,” by Strauss, and lighter numbers. This performance will conclude the indoor concerts for this season. Throughout the summer the band will give concerts in Albert Park on Sunday evenings and in the other city parks on Thursday evenings.

Richard Tauber, probably the most popular tenor of the day, is certainly a magician so far as music is concerned. Lyrics have been written to the airs of two instrumental numbers, SaintSaen’s “LeCygne” (The Swan), and Dvorak’s “Humoureske,” and these are sung by the great tenor upon a recording to be released shortly. Such is Tauber’s wonderful artistry that he makes these popular airs sound like something new and quite enjoyable. Curiously enough, of the two, the writer appreciated most the one he likes least as an instrumental number, this being “Humoureske” so often murdered by organists. Both of them, however, are so beautifully sung that they are sure to be enjoyed universally, even by purists who object to "transcriptions.”

Mr. Hubert Carter, who is now settled in Christchurch, is having a very busy time with concert engagements. On September 25 he sang a group of Old English songs for the Timaru Orchestral Society, and, with the assistance of Miss Millicent O’Grady, soprano, and Mr. Stanley Morgan, pianist, did the Finale to Act 1 of "La Boheme” in costume and with stage effects, for which he had a great reception. The 27th saw him at Methven, where he gave a recital to a packed house, the programme includ-

ing extracts from "La Boheme” and “H Trovatore,” both being given in costume. At this recital he had the assistance of Miss Nancy Bowden, contralto. On November 6 Mr. Carter sings for the Greymouth Philharmonic Society in "Judas Maccabaeus," and on the 13th in “Hiawatha” for the Ashburton Choral Society. On December 7 he is to present a concert in the Radiant Hall, Christchurch, at which will be given the principal items from "Hiawatha,” "Acis and Galatea,” “Ancient Mariner,” "Golden Legend,” and the first New Zealand performance of Granville Bantock’s “Omar Kayyam” (Part I.) This latter work is composed for contralto, tenor, and baritone soloists, with double chorus, and is said to be very beautiful, but difficult.

Extract from a letter in the “New Zealand Radio Record”: —“I like any classical music with a tune in it, as, for Instance, most of Mendelssohn, especially the 'Songs Without Words,' and the other great composers. (Whatever that means). I don't like these interminable concertos. They leave me cold, and remind me of the race in 'Alice In Wonderland.’ Start when you like and stop when you like, and nobody will know the difference. I suppose there are really people who like this sort of thing, and a lot more who say they do, but I think 90 per cent, neither like nor understand it, and don’t want to, and I’m one of them. Give me 'The Moonlight Sonata.' and 'Softly Awakes My Heart,’ and such-like.” Why is it that individuals with more or less commonplace tastes in music simply cannot understand anyone else having a genuine preference for, say, so-called 'interminable concertos?’ It these people were to obtain, for instance, the fine recording of the "Emperor Concerto," played from IYA last Sunday, or the Brahms “Symphony in C Minor” (No 1), and play them every evening for a week, on a good machine, they would experience a new delight at each repetition. and discover soon that they had made a lasting Investment.

Mr. Peter Dawson evidently has abandoned his idea of playing a return visit to the Dominion, for Australian advices state that he returns to England shortly by the Orama.

Opera-goers are accustomed to see the role of the Japanese heroine in Puccini’s "Butterfly” interpreted by a native Japanese. A new authenticity of characterisation was tried in New York recently. Negroes were cast with the so-called Chicago Opera Company in the African roles of Verdi’s “Alda.” Caterina Jarbaro, trained in Italy, sang the title part. Jules Bledsoe, baritone concert and operetta artist, impersonated her father, Amonasro.

Amusing sidelights of English musical life in the eighties are given in a book by Felix Remo, “La Musique au Pays des Brouillards” (“Music in the Land of Fogs”). The book begins at the top—with the Royal family and a quizzing account of their musical accomplishments. Remo guarantees his anecdotes. Vieuxtemps himself, he says, told him how once, when playing a concerto before Queen Victoria, he had been commanded to stop short in the middle of a movement. It was the era when people talked during musical performances as to-day they talk to the accompaniment of wireless or the gramophone. Ernst related to the author how, when he was engaged to play at Queen Victoria's Court, the orchestra began a concerto three times over, and how, the conversation of the company still continuing without abatement, he retired without performing at all. But Monsieur Remo fell to the charm of the Princess of Wales, whom 1m once heard play the piano exquisitely. On the other hand, he insists that eminent amateur the Duke of Edinburgh “marytrised his Stradivarius.” London in the 1880’s, so Felix assures us, was the city of the best possible and the worst possible music—the best represented by a multitude of splendid concerts, given by the greatest artists of the world, who were attracted by London’s surpassing wealth and generosity; and the worst by the drawing rooms.

The extraordinary popularity of Bach to-day was demonstrated recently in London when Sir Henry Wood conducted a concert of Bach’s works at Queen’s Hall, in which sacred arias were sandwiched between secular instrumental works, principally piano concertos, of which the programme included no fewer than four. Whether secular or sacred, this music was all accepted with the liveliest appreciation by the qyerflowing audience. All seats had been sold well beforehand. This has been usual since Bach’s great vogue set in at the Promenade concerts some half-dozen years ago. A queue began to form outside the hall at noon, and many hundreds of persons waited throughout the afternoon. The popular appeal of such a concert—unimaginable at the Promenades of 20 years ago—is remarkable in that a succession of Bach’s clavier concertos yields comparatively little expressive music. Four lidless grand pianos were on the platform, radiating from the conductor. The sight was unusual, and an Ignorant visitor might have thought that Sir Henry was about to perform on some huge species of dulcimer, a London critic wrote.