NEW ZEALAND COMPETITIONS

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1 August 1924, Page 25

NEW ZEALAND COMPETITIONS

fine music? That is a point for much discussion. Previous competitions have tended to produce the former, this will help to produce the latter; not that it is not possible to be both, of course. All musicians do not approve of the solo singing or playing competition, and I think I am one who tends to agree with them. After months of practice, during which the wide field of music is narrowed to one small piece for the candidate, our (usually) young prodigy can probably play that one piece well. We must be thankful for small mercies; but does he know who the composer was? Should he speak frankly, after having heard his much practised piece repeated about fifty times in succession in the competition chamber, his words of appreciation” would be far from complimentary. There is another element in the old-fashioned type of musical competition which seems to defeat its own ideals of musical education—it introduces personal strife of a description which sets the music and its composer at nought as compared with the prowess of each individual competitor. Often it is the personality of the performer, as shown in his interpretation, rather than a rendering in which his personal feelings are lost in an endeavour to gain the meaning of the composer, himself, which gains the laurels for him. Solo competitions may find a few artists for us, but do they give us musicians? Just as The Mirror is going to press I have received the list of the pieces selected, which I append:—Air for G String, Bach; Anitra ? s Dance, Greig; Barcarolle, Offenbach-, Blue Danube Waltz, Strauss; Drink To Me Only, Jonson ; Erl King, Schubert; Gavotte (Mignon), Thomas; Hallelujah Chorus, Handel; He Shall Feed His Flock, Handel; Hungarian Dance No. 5, Brahms; Humoresque, Dvorak; Intermezzo (Cav. bus.), Mascagni; Largo, Handel; Lass With Delicate Air, Arne; March Militaire, Schubert; Marseillaise, de Lisle; Minuet in G, Beethoven; Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven; Nutcracker Suite, Tschaikowsky ; Pomp and Circumstance, Elgar; Prelude C Minor, Bachmaninoff; Prologue, Pagliaeci, Leoncavallo; Saint d'Amour, Elgar; Serenade, Diene; Soldiers’ Chorus (Faust), Gounod; Toreador Song, Bizet; Wedding March. Mendelssohn; William Tell, Bossini; Bourree and Air, Bach ; But the Lord is Mindful, Mendelssohn; Chefaro Senza Euridice, Gluck; Butterfly Etude, Chopin; Hall of the Mountain King, Greig; How Lovely Are the Messengers, Mendelssohn ; If With All Your Hearts, Mendelssohn; I Know That My Redeemer, Handel; John Peel, Old English; La Paloma, 1 radicr; Legende, TVieniaivski; lead, Kindly Light, Dykes; Lift Thine Eyes, Mendelssohn; Minuet, Gluck; Minuet in G Minor. Mozart; Overture, 1812, Tschaikowsky; ' Polonaise (Mignon), Thomas; Shepherd’s Dance, German; Songs My Mother Taught Me, Dvorak; Spinning Song; Mendelssohn; To a Water Lily, MacDowell; Yalse Triste, Sibelius; Villanelle, Dell ’ Acqua; Waltzing Doll, Pol dim; Witches’ Dance, MacDowell; With Verdure Clad, Haydn; Who is Sylvia? Schubert. MAORI SONGS IN ROME Miss Eileen Driscoll, the Wellington vocalist, has been singing Maori songs in Rome, to the delight of her audience. They fell in love with the Maori words, which have the soft vowels the Italians, musical people, love so well. Mr. Alfred Hill must be congratulated on the approbation with which his songs were received, and on having them introduced by such a capable singer as Miss Driscoll, about whose voice her listeners were complimentary.