HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18419, 22 March 1928, Page 8

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. British Educational Music. British music is now being turned out by British composers in great volume. Their output is particularly rich in easy pieces for pianoforte, and other instruments, which aim at tunefulness combined with good taste. There is also an immense supply of children's music, and it is nearly all of a sort which is likely to keep the children interested. When it is remembered how little used to be done in that respect, it becomes clear that there was no time like the present in the matter of pleasurable paths for the little people's climb to music’s Parnassus. And it is the compositions of present-day British writers which chiefly account for the change. k Relics <oi Old London. The Cuming Museum, in Walworth Road, London, possesses the old leaden pump from the Marshalsea Prison exercise yard, referred to by Dickens in “ Little Dorrit.” Here, too, is preserved the original copper from the Mint Street Workhouse, in Southwark, lrom which the paupers' daily ration of gruel Avas ladled, and which is traditionally said to haA-e been the one described in “ Oliver Twist.” The scene where O.i-A-er asked “ for more.” howeA er, was not laid in London, as has been asserted. but at some place in tne Midlands. The museum wherein these and many other interesting relics of old London are. enshrined Avas formed by a Richard Cuming, Avho died, aged ninety* two, in 1870. K « « Musicians’ Side Lines. To become a successful professional musician, that is. to acquire a wide technical knowledge of the particular musical activity in which one intends to specialise, together with sufficient general musical knowledge to support it, demands long years of intensive training. Some few people, howe\ r er, manage to acquire this, as well as a similar knowledge 'relating to some other profession. Some of the A-ery greatest geniuses of all time haA-e had a struggle in their early lives to get permission from prejudiced parents or guardians to devote the necessary time to the stibject, Avhile others haA-e managed without, getting the time whicit is generally considered necessary. Of musicians who haAe first been trained for some other profession, Schumann, who was intended for a law yer, and followed most of his course in that profest.ion. is the outstanding instance. Sibelius was also intended for a lawyer, and actually passed his examinations, while Sir George Grove was for many years an engineer. Albert Roussel, the French composer, was a naval officer, and se\-eral of the best-known Russian composers were Go\-ernment cials and doctors.