MUSIC NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10035, 23 December 1910, Page 3

MUSIC NOTES.

The Thomas orchestra of Chicago has a. £130,000 endowment subscribed by 8500 persons in amounts ranging from £SOOO to something less than a. shilling- ■ f , , Madame Emma Calve, who was in New Zoaland recently, is said to have composed an opera ; it is to he produced in a French theatre next season. "Giovanni d'Arco" us its name.

Despite the fact that Siegfried Wagner's last operatic effort has been no pronounced success, it has been announced for performance in Vienna by the intendant of the Imperial Opera. " I wonder what the teacher meant about the singing of my two daughters?" "What did he sayP" "He said that Mamie's voice was good, but Maud's was better still."—Cleveland " Leader."

Paderewski, though regarding the piano with the profoundest affection, is not given to encouraging aspirants to undertake its study as a life work. " Anyone who takes up piano playing with a view to becoming a professional pianist," he says, "has taken on himself an awful burden."

Although Saint-Saens completed his seventy-fifth year in October, his mind is as active as ever. He has nearly finished a new opera, "Dejanira, Wyhich is based on a drama by Sophocles, the libretto having been prepared by the composer himself. It will be produced at the Grand Opera in Paris. The New York "Evening Post" notes that Paris is somewhat behindhand as regards the production, of Massenet's operas. The last three of them, "Therese," "Bacchus" and "Don Quixote," have not been heard there, the honours of the first performances having gone to Monto Carlo and Brussels. Popular appreciation of Caruso's voice was not always what it is now. Verdi, for one, had small confidence in him. "When I created Feodor in Milan," says the tenor, "he asked the names of the artists, and when he heard mine he interrupted: 'Caruso? They tell mo lie has a fine voice, but it seems tc> me that his head is not in its place.' " Paderewski's method of practising is thus described by an English observer, Dalhousie Young: '''He worked hard—but his efforts were sometimes concentrated into a small compass. Eight bars have constituted one day's work. Ho would pin his bit of music to the wall. Try a movement without it—return to the music. ' No, not clean ' : ho must do it again. He would take innumerable little journeys, and when he had satisfied himself he would take one bean out of a cup on the right of the piano-and transfer it to another on the left. Three, four, five boans! But a mistake would happen—a ' split' note — and he returned all the beans to the first cup." Among the centeuaries of the year, that of the birth of Joseph Alfred Novello deserves honourable mention because of the incalculable influence of the mam achievement of his life (says the "Musical Times"). He was the pioneer of cheap music in the world. No doubt this boon to the advancement of music would have come from some other source at a later period, just as the steam engine would have come if Watt and Stephenson had nover been born. But this does not lessen the merit of Alfred Novello's foresight and determined courage in venturing to do what no one elso at the time thought of doing, Joseph Alfred Novello was born on August 12, 1810, and he died at Genoa on July 16, 1896. He was one of Vincent Novello's eleven children. In his early manhood he was a bass singer, and his services were much in request. Tho story of his career as a music publisher is too interesting to suffer compression hero. It will be found in the existing edition of " A Short History of Cheap Music," published in 1887 by Messrs Novello, and it will receive due recognition in tbe later history of the firm of Novello and Co., which will be issued early next year —the centenary of the establishment of the firm.