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The World of Music

Notes and Comments of General Interest

(By “Semitone")

There are several remarkable ballets In the list of works to be presented in New Zealand by the Colonial de Basil Monte Carlo Russian Ballet which commencing its Dominion tour at Auckland on Wednesday last. “The Swan Lake" is the oldest ballet in the repertoire. It is danced to Tschaikowsky music. “Aurora’s Wedding" (Tschaikowsky-Petipa) is an abbreviation from “Sleeping Princess;” “Les Sylphldes," created by Michael Fokine, is a romantic reverie to the music of Chopin; “Carnival” is another Fokine number to Schumann music; costumes from the original designs of Leon Bakst; “Prince Igor,” also created by Fokine, features wild mountain dances,

in which the maitre de ballet, Leon Woizikowsky dances gloriously; “Spectre de la Rose" is a poem based on Gautier, and tells of a girl’s first ball and her dream o£ a lover; “Scherherazade" is a gruesome story from “Arabian Nights,” with Woizikowsky accomplishing breath-taking l^ups; “Boutique Fantastique” is danced to Rossini music arranged by the composer Respighi—it is a nocturnal adventure in a toy shop. “Bean Danube” is light ballet to Strauss music; “Senoia di Ballo” is charming 18th century Venetian ballet to Boccherini music—and is set in a dancing school; “Les Presages," with Leon Woizikowsky as Fate, is danced to Tschaikowsky’s sth symphony, and introduces more types of movement than have ever before been seen in Ballet; “Port Said" is Leon Woizikowsky’s own creation, to Konstantinofl music; it is a caricature on the international cacaphony of the famous poet.

Dr Harvey Grace, editor of the “Musical Times," in a recent speech, deplored the absence of the public from musical festivals. He said:— "There can be no doubt that the ability to obtain entertainment of some sort during the greater part of the day and night at a trifling cost and with no trouble is gradually bringing about a • subconscious reluctance to go out—and ’ to ’shellout,’ ’’ he said. “If your taste is of the accommodating sort that can at least put up with wireless pot-luck every evening, sleeping or talking through what does not attract you. and reading a paper through what does, you can have all the entertainment you want without stirring from your chair.”

Sir Percy Buck, former musical adviser to London County Council, in his presidential address to the 47th annual conference of the Incorporated Society of Musicians at Harrogate, said:—“During the last ten years, both in connection with the great secondary schools of London and also in dealing with a certain large teachers’ training course, I may claim to have been behind the scenes, and it is my opinion that a great awakening among musicians is overdue. The days are over when a teacher can merely show how an instrument is to be played, and those teachers who propose, in these quickmoving times, to live on the capital acquired in their student days, may prophesy disastrous failures for themselves before they begin. The average piano-teacher nowadays must, besides piano technique and repertory, lie proficient in many and varied ways. The teacher must be able to ‘hold’ a class of pupils and to interest them in the meaning of music and in its structure, and development, must be able to train them in listening and in all that is connoted by the word ‘aural,’ must have a mind full of ancient and modern ‘instances,’ and the power to illustrate at the piano at a moment’s notice. The teacher should certainly be able to harmonise tunes of all sorts readily, to extemporise, and to explain the harmonic basis of what he is doing, should have the acknowledged masterpieces, in all branches of music, at the beck and call of memory, and, above all, must undewtand the underlying principles on which both mind and body work—that common-sense study to which we give the rather suspect name of psychology. How well I can remember my own first music lesson—the normal one of its period; a governess, a bad piano, a five-finger exercise, a little cane for rapping the knuckles. I hated it, and refused to endure a second. And all the time it might, and should, have been a heaven-sen:: opportunity for a teacher to initiate '•* child into the mystery and hidden loveliness which lie behind beautiful sounds. That is the initiation for which this new world is asking.”

Rossini’s Sarcasm A good story is told of Rossini and one of his best-known songs, “Una Voce Poco Fa,” from “The Barber of Seville.” Adelina Patti, the coloratura soprano, was singing the sing to the aged composer, but like all coloraturas she disguised the air in a network of new embroideries as to provoke his gentle sarcasm. “That’s a very pretty song, my child,” he remarked, “Who composed it?”

Possible World Tour The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has received invitations to give concetrs in Athens, Angora, Tokio, Australia, South America and other centres. Accordingly the possibility of

a world tour is under consideration. The orchestra, however, has a number of engagements to fulfil in Germany, and it is unlikely that it would be able to leave before the end of the year No definite plans had yet been made. It is hoped that if the tour does take place Dr Furtwaengler may be persuaded to accompany the orchestra as chief conductor.

“It is going too far, surely, to describe the concert and the opera as museum-pieces, the privilege of a small class which is shrinking each year,” states an English musical writer in a recently published book. “This might

be fairly near the mark if applied only to first-hand performances; but the factor that inevitably brought about at least a temporary decline of the con-' cert hall and the opera house has also carried symphonic and chamber music and, in a lesser degree, the opera, into thousands of homes where formerly real music was unknown.”

The protection afforded musicians In South Africa upon the innovation of talking pictures, is the subject of comment by a Wellington visitor to the Union, Miss E. Henry, in an article published in “Music in New Zealand.” “When the ‘talkies’ came into the market, numbers of musicians were put out of work,” Miss Henry says. “There was a much reduced amount of work offering, so the Musician’s Union was instrumental in getting the Government to pass a law that no musician coming into the country could take any permanent engagement before paying the sum of £250 to the Government. The amount was to be returned at the end of two years. This is more than has ever been done in New Zealand to protect local talent,” Miss Henry adds.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19370306.2.61.27

Bibliographic details

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 14 (Supplement)

Word Count
1,106

The World of Music Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 14 (Supplement)

The World of Music Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 14 (Supplement)

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