The Kowalski Concert Company.

Thames Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 7071, 31 December 1891, Page 2

The Kowalski Concert Company.

OPEN AT THAMES TO-MORROW NIGHT

Ab our readers are already aware, the Kowalski Concert Company bare been induced to visit the Thames and give two grand con' certs, and will accordingly open in the Academy of Music for the first time to-morrow evening, when an attractive programme will be submitted for the criticism of the Thames, public. The Company is undoubtedly the most talented that baa visited the Thames for many years, and it may, we think, be confi. dently predicted that the season hero will be a successful one. ■ In a lengthy notice of one of the company's concert's in Auckland, last evening's Star says: " The adage that ' Good wine needs no bush' presupposes that the wine has been already tasted, and the meagre patronage hither, to extended to what is probably the begt pollectjve concert company Auckland bus ever heard, shows that witj tha first instance at least good music mast bo " bushed." Within the last three years or ao Auckland has been visited by four high-class concert companies, each of which has been more or less dependent upon one great vocal efcar as their " draw," but whioh have beeu also vocally strong in other respects. In the case of the Kowalski Company, however, Up excellence lies in the fact that since that time, ten years ago, when the great Wilhelmj toured this colony, no such magnificent interpretation of the finest class of instrumental music has been heapd Jn New JSealand. Indeed, if; ja doubtful whether such a coiyibinqtiaft as Henri Kowalski and Herr Pechotsch has ever before been presented in these parts, and those who can relish the pleasures of fine piano and violin-playing, and whom the holiday season has still left resident in town, are losing'theopportunity of hearing performances which are at once as delightful as they are rare. " Any notion that a high-class concert can be dull is obviated by the astonishing tone., fire and brilliancy, and the superb taste exhibited by the great piano- virtuoso, Kowalski, both, in his rendition and in his selection of pieces. These range through every sch.opj of music-T-popular, operatic, and classipalwand ! whether he is compounding the work of another composer or dealing with his own arrangement of a well known melody ? the exhibition oi consummate artistfc po.wes? and taste is the same. He is veritably the Chopinist of the South. In the vocal department, also, there is no weakness, as the ap. plause of the assembled enthusiasts and the invariable encore accorded to Miss Bossow and Madame Vanderveer-Greene testify* Why, with so much fine artistic effort on one side and so much appreciation upon the!o{;b,flr, the audiences do not increase faster, is only to be explained by the fact that this is the dead weejc of tbe year. It cannot be possibly that Auckland taste has degenerated |o fast from the days of Santley and Patey, "Last evening the pi ogramrns was perhaps the finest hitherto presented, and ■the'gratifU cation exb.ibited.by the fciidieuee was.proportionately high. Ju the threo »oYeuj§at^ of

Beethoven's Sonata in F., Mons. Kowalaki and Herr Pechotsch excelled themselves, while in the Caprice of Vieuxtemps the latter exhibited his peculiarly sterling qualities. Miss Bertha Rossow fairly brought down the house with her admirable rendering of' Dear Heart' and 'It was a Dream,' and Madame Vanderveer-Green!in Hullah's song, 'Three Fishers,' completely entranced her hearers with the dramatic singing of the old favorite. Mons. Kowalski, iri his two items of Chopin, played as he never [played here before, and served as a foil for showing us how Chopin is habitually misrendored by ordinary players. The startling feature of the evening, however, was Kowalski's^ 'Marche Hongroise' for two pianos, in which the composer and his enthusiastic pupil, Miss Griffiths, completely electrified the audience and had to submit to an imperative though exhausting encore."