OF MUSICAL INTEREST

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1 September 1923, Page 20

OF MUSICAL INTEREST

p H EIS T GIIU E CII claims the v> honour of Stella Murray (see frontispiece), who has been living and studying with Madame Melba in the South of France. Miss Murray's voice is a contralto of rare quality, and she has—what is necessary for success —a fine intellect and sweetness of personality. At Dame Nellie Melba 's concert, at Tunbridge Wells, Miss Stella Murray was presented with a bouquet by Lord Richard Neville. Her singing of Tschaikowsky V ' None but a Lonely Heart,'' "Bless thou the Lord," " The Sweetest Flower that Blows,'' and "My True Love," were much enjoyed, and, referring later to the New Zealand contralto, Dame Melba remarked: "Miss Murray is just beginning her career, and I predict great things for her." ceo PEOPLE with musical training are far more likely to escape street accidents than those who have none," was the opinion expressed by Mr. John B. McEwen in a lecture on musical education at the Royal Institution recently. Musical training, the lecturer argued, helped people to think and move more quickly. Musical training stimulated the response-to-time impulse, and enabled us to dodge a 'bus in a fraction of a second. Unmusical children should be made to practise for the reason that it sharpened their mental and bodily faculties. Strangely enough, the only institutions in which these facts were appreciated were the mentally deficient schools.

What is a " Hurdy-Gurdy? " A letter from London, England, contains some surprising information on the hurdy-gurdy. The authority for this account is C. F. Abdy Williams, who contributed the particulars to ' Music. It is curious that the word hurdy-gurdy seems in most people's minds to be associated with any wheezy old instrument that is played mechanically; more especially had it been applied to the melancholy "monkey organ" that infested the streets till it r as driven out by the ferocity of the ''piano organ.'' But the hurdy-gurdy is not a wind instrument, nor was it originally a denizen of the streets. On the contrary, it was a stringed instrument, and for centuries held an honoured place in the church with the troubadours, at a time when the organ was. still an intractable noise maker and the violin did not yet exist. Let the reader imagine an instrument shaped something like the body of a guitar. Its six strings are concealed by a cover of ebony or other wood, and in place of the neck there is a keyboard, having small black and white keys. The keyboard is placed at right angles to the strings, which are called bourdons, or drones, and are not acted on by the keys. They can, however, be.silenced at will. The upper strings produce the melody. Underneath the strings, at the place they would be acted on by the bow if the instrument were a violin, is a rosined wheel. This is turned by a handle projecting from the "button" or peg to which the tailpiece is attached, as in the violin. To play the hurdy-gurdy the performer suspends it from his neck by a ribbon, and

turns the wheel with his right hand. Such of the drones as are not silenced now sound; and with his left hand he plays the keys, which press the melody strings on to the wheel, causing them to sound the notes he requires. The keys in fact take the place of the left hand fingers of the violinist, but the hurdy-gurdy, though a mechanically played violin, is centuries older than the violin as we know it. At first the instrument was called the " organistrum. " After the twelfth century we read of it as the "symphonia, " the "sambuca rotata, " the "ehifonin." Its Latin name became the ' lyra mendieorum," or beggar lyre. In Italy it was known as the "lyra rusticana," or "lyra pagana," or "stampella"; and in England it was called the "hurdygurdy," probably from the monotony of its tone. Kircher says that although its use is confined to mendicants, yet its internal construction shows considerable ingenuity, and it is capable of every kind of harmony. Mersennus remarks that the instrument is neglected by the learned and respectable (doctiores, honcstiorcs viri), merely because it is so familiar an object in the hands of the blind and other paupers in the alleys. Mankind, he says, "easily despises what is common and places a great value on rare things. Yet there are some who perform beautifully on this lyra, and scarcely any instrument is more capable of moving the passions."

In the eighteenth century it rapidly came into favour with fashionable society in Paris. Eminent French violin makers took to turning old guitars into vielles and making newones with handsomely inlaid bodies, while they improved the tone and extended the compass to two octaves with all the semitones. There were even composers for the instrument, though we must confess that we are not familiar with their works. It is said that the great Sebastian Bach showed some interest in its revival; but then he was interested in every conceivable thing that could make music. It was thought worthy of helping to sing the praises of St. Cecilia, for in an ode to that saint, set to music by Dr. Arne, there occurs the passage: — With mournful moans, with grievous groans, The sober hurdy-gurdy sounds. ' ' The music of the hurdy-gurdy figures in one of the most pathetic songs in the whole range of music, viz., Schubert's "Der Leiermaim," describing the sufferings of an old and blind mendicant. During the nineteenth century a Frenchman, named Barbu, became a famous executant, performing in the streets and courtyards in Paris, and occasionally even giving concerts. He appears to have been a real artist. He was killed during the Commune of IS7O, and with him died the last artistic exponent of an instrument that has seen extraordinary ups and downs in the many centuries of its existence.