MUSICAL NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5762, 5 January 1897, Page 3

MUSICAL NOTES.

[By Counter-Tenor n:* I'*''Canterbury'1 '*'' Canterbury' Times.]'-" ' ' The London Guildhall, tl_-?'lE.rgest college of ifittsic in the world, has- .46 instructors and 4000 pupils. The October number of tWpStrand JLfus.cdl Magazine contains an ihtsYview with Mr Hugo Gorlitz, which sUilis uji some of the interesting experiences of PadeVewski's tours in America and Europe. Mr -Gri>r*Mtz himself recently went to South African-tie only part of the world, he says, in whi.h he has not superintended concerts, ona'of ■' his first ventures having been as director of the Philharmonic Society of Sydney,I Axxstralia, twenty years" ago. He will be i back in time for Paderewski's next tour. . 'He says that during' his three tours m America that pianist gave two hundred and sixty rsix concerts, the receipts , for ; which amounted to over half a million dollars. The high water mark for a single 1 soncert was reached in Chicago, .£1476. In ': London he beat the record last season at St James's Hall with .£l_(X). In Leipsic he earned for the Liszt memorial nearly 7000 marks, a fabulous sum for that city. "In Texas entire schools travelled hundreds of miles— one school, in fact, travelled 800 miles, going and returning — to hear him. Crowds would even gather at stations at which our train did not stop;in order to see our car fly through."' Paderewski was greatly interested in the negro melodies he heard in the Southern States. On several occasions a gentleman of his acquaintance gave him the opportunity of listening to genuine plantation songs, and of seeing dances by negroes. At San Francisco he not only went repeatedly to the Chinese theatre to listen to the music, but he took home with him a complete set of Chinese musical instruments. London is in danger of losing one of its oldest musical institutions, the Saturday afternoon concerts at the Crystal Palace, which,, after forty year's of existence, have received such scant support of late that the directors threaten to discontinue them unless matters are mended. To these concerts Londoners are largely indebted fiov their early knowledge of many of the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Spohr, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak and Wagner; and it is said that here .the English composer, often harassed by the difficulty of obtaining a hearing elsewhere, has ever been welcome. It is possible that this circumstance contributed to the unpopularity of the Crystal Palace concerts ; for the English are hot partial to English music unless it be in the field of operetta, the ballad, or in the church. Possibly the patrons want a change in the conductorship, the frequent visits pf Eichter; Mottl, and other famous German conductors having opened their ears as to the immense importance of having an emotional conductor. A London paper wonders whether the cause of the decline is to be found in the " love of outdoor sports,, the cra_e for golf, for cycling, for cricket and football — an excessive devotion to which pursuits is said by some thinkers to be enfeebling the intellectual life of the nation, and injuring the cultivation of the arts." But, perhaps, the principal reason is to be sought in the superabundance of concerts.

Louis Spohr was born- on> April 5, 1784, at Brunswick, where his father occupied a good position as a medical man. Young Spohr was early set to the- violin, under Mancourt and Eek, accompanying the latter on a Eussian tour. Hi's first appointment was in the Brunswick Capelle. By the time he attained his twentieth year (1804), his violin compositions had already become esteemed as masterpieces, and his life had become that of the travelling virtuoso. The following year (1805) he was appointed ducal concert master at Gotha. During his stay there he produced his oratorio " The Last Judgment '* (" Das Jungste Gericht ") , and the operas " Air una" and "The Rivals' Duel" ("Der Zweikampf derGeliebten".). In 1813 he removed to Vienna, wherehe produced his " Faust •"" and in 1817" again to Frankfort, as musical director of the theatre, producing there " Zemire and Azor." settling down, finally, in 1522 (after a journey to London and a stay in Dresden) as court capettmeister in Cassel. Here, in 1823, his operatic chef d'asuvre," Jessonda," was given to the world (July 28, 1823), followed, in 1825, by " Der Berggeist" ("The Mountain Spirit"), " Pietro von Albano," and "Der Alchymist " (July 28, 1830). But these later works are of inferior merit to "Jessonda" and " Faust. " Only one of these — "Jessonda" — may be said to have kept the stage. It is played occasionally in Germany, but English performances (few and rare as thsy have been) have never roused any very great enthusiasm. To my thinking, (writes Mr E. J. Brakespeare in the English Musical Opinion) Sophr never received full credit in this country for the importance and influence of J his vastly original genius. There certainly was, for a brief period; something of " a rage " for Spohrian oratorio ; but his work on the whole — with its melodic elegance, richness and sublety of harmony and wonderful variety in forms of display withal— has been studied here as it really deserved to be but by a very f c w ardent lovers of the art. At the present day, is it too much to say of Spohr that he is one of the "dead lions "of music ? A mournful reflection it is, that a great man should "live," if at all, but by some half dozen works • perhaps not his best, after all, ov his most characteristic.

"What great events from little causes rise." Who would have supposed that a prima donna's pet dog would have hindered her from important engagements ? Madame Nordica, being at Bayreuth during a festival, contrived to carry in under her cloak a favourite spaniel. The animal, not having the same admiration of Wagner's discords as the German audience, gave an awful yelp in the midst of a striking scene in the " Nibelungen Eing." Prau Cosiina Wagner discovered the four - footed culprit, and visited his mistress with her severest displeasure. When it was proposed for Madame Nordica to take part in the Bayreuth performances, Frau Wagner "put her foot down" on, the engagement most decidedly.

Wilhelmj, like Liszt, abandoned the virtuoso career when his fame was at its height, and it now seems as if, like Liszt in his day, he had made up his mind never to return to the concert stage. Yet he is only fifty-one years old. With the possible exception of Joachim, says the New York Evening Post, he is the greatest violinist since Faganini. When he was sixteen, Liszt said to him, " You are so eminently predestined for the violin, that if it had not existed before it would have been necessary to invent it for you ; " and in 1876 Wagner paid him the compliment of inviting him to be concert master of the Bayreuth orchestra. After retiring from the stage he started a violin school in Biebrich, but soon gave it up and devoted his attention to his vineyard. At present he lives near Dresden, giving some of his time to composing. Sarasate, the famous violinist, is a native of Pampeluna, where he was born in 1844. His father was a military bandmaster, and the great violinist began to study at home at the early age of five. At eleven he was sent to Madrid and became a pupil of Manuel Rodriguez, enjoying the patronage and financial help of the Queen Isabella and the Provincial Council of Navarra. In 1856 Sarasate left for Paris, and he entered the Conservatoire m the following year, There he took the first prize in 1857, and was first accessit for harmony in 1858 when but fourteen years of age. In Paris Madame Lassobathie, a well-known music lover, practically adopted the young violinist, and he was enabled to pursue his studies untrammelled by the necessity of playing for a livelihood. In 1860 he went back to Madrid, and was made a knight of Isabel la Catolica at the age of sixteen. He was only a year older when he made his debut at the Crystal Palace in 1861. but he resumed his studies in Paris afterwards, and it was until 1 856 that he made his|first tour under the management of M. Ulmann. Since then he has been heard at some 2000 concerts in Europe and North and South America. Sarasate, who is entitled to be addressed as Excellency, is a knight of more than a dozenforeign orders, including the Legion of Honour.