MADAME STEINHAUER AND HER CONCERT COMPANY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue II, 11 January 1896, Page 33

MADAME STEINHAUER AND HER CONCERT COMPANY.

THE news that Madame Steinhauer—better known to some as Madame Bahnson—is going Home to England will create little surprise amongst her many friends and admirers in this colony. Wherever and whenever this truly great artist has sung before us, we have felt that such a voice and such a singer would not forever content herself with colonial triumphs. We must have all realised that sooner or later Madame Steinhauer would long return Home to revisit those famous musical centres of Europe where she gained her musical training and scored her first successes. Well, she is going ! Going, as is wise, while her voice is at the very zenith of its strength and purity, and when years of increasing and painstaking work have done all that cultivation can do to the perfecting of natural gifts. It is now nearly six years since this great soprano bid farewell to Auckland to live for a season in the Australian colonies. Few who were present on that memorable occasion can have forgotten the scene. The audience was enormous. Nothing to compare with it has been seen since ; certainly never before had the City Hall held such an audience. There were circumstances at the time which no doubt helped to account for so great a gathering. Personal popularity had no doubt an influence in the matter, but if the audience was partly drawn by friendship and a desire to give a notable ‘send-off’ to a local celebrity, the enthusiasm with which the singing of Madame was greeted was for the art, and for the art alone. Anyone who had sung as she did would have aroused equal thunders of applause. Then Madame left Auckland, and after an absence of some two years paid a brief visit and gave one or two concerts, renewing and repeating former travels. Now on her way Home MADAME STEINHAUER IS TO PAY AUCKLAND ANOTHER VISIT. This announcement will doubtless be received with some disappointment in the South, for nothing is said about a tour to Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, where Madame Steinhauer is as great a favourite as she is in the North. But in Auckland there will be jubilation amongst those who love the well-known voice of this highly gifted and splendidly-trained soprano. Madame comes this time with a company selected by herself, and we have sufficient belief in her judgment and her knowledge of the high standard of musical taste in New Zealand to feel assured that it will be a worthy one. But apart from this there are reports from Australia which speak with no uncertain voiceas to the merits of the artists who accompany Madame Steinhauer. That lady, we take it, needs no recommendation to an Auckland, or indeed to a New Zealand audience. Gifted by nature with that rarest quality of high soprano, which is as sweet and soft on the highest as it is on the middle and lower registers, Madame Steinhauer has been most exceptionally well trained, and by unremitting toil has achieved a perfection of culture it would be difficult indeed to excel. She is an artist in the very highest sense of that much misused and very often shamelessly misappropriated word. To hear her sing is always a pleasure, and to many of us on some occasions something better and higher and more lasting than a mere pleasure —something wLlcfi makes us pause and think and affects us as an exquisite scene or a beautiful sunset do, making us fe l '! our unworthiness of the world created for us, and a new appreciation of its beauties. Foremost amongst those who come must be mentioned Mr J. Albert Mallinson, the pianist. Mr Mallinson, though young in years, has had a most successful career. He is an organist of repute, a refined pianist, and a composer of most artistic music. In Leeds and Melbourne, he has lately given concerts which consisted entirely of his own compositions, a feat which obviously subjects the composer’s powers to a severe and hazardous ordeal. Born at Leeds, he became at an early age a chorister at Leeds Parish Church, renowned in England for its elaborate and beautiful Cathedral services. At sixteen years of age he was appointed private organist to the Hon. Mrs Meynell Ingram, at the historical seat of Temple-Newsam, and two years later, he added to this the organistship of St. Chad’s, Leeds, and in the same year became sub-organist of the church he had sung in as a chorister ; thus holding three organist appointments at the same time. At an early age he exhibited powers of composition and his works now include quartets and trios for piano and strings, sonates, a dramatic ballad, songs, compositions for the piano and organ, anthems and church services. He has given recitals in various parts of the North of England, and during his residence in Melbourne, he gives periodical recitals at St. George’s, East St. Kilda,of which church he is at present organist. His works have been reviewed in high terms by eminent critics, and the words of a critic writing from London, 1891, are : ‘ He is a brilliant organist and pianist, and a composer of artistic music.

He has composed a considerable quantity of music for the church, and his chamber music for stringed instruments and the piano may be characterised as the work of an exalted mind. His songs, too, are charming compositions.* Mr Mallinson left England about two years ago owing to bad health, but the Australian climate having had a most beneficial effect, he will be able to return shortly together with his wife, Madame Steinhauer. Miss Regina Najel, a young lady of only nineteen years of age, is spoken of by the great Melbourne critics with extraordinary enthusiasm. One declares she is destined for one of the world’s singers. Another says it is one of the most remarkable voices heard anywhere—a contralto of extraordinary rare depth and richness, masculine in power, and with a tremor the like of which has never been heard in Australasia. Mr Leigh Harris, who comes as tenor, is spoken of very highly, and will doubtless prove worthy to accompany the other artists. Altogether the concerts should be a very decided success, and southern cities may well envy Auckland.