MR DURWARD LELY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XXIII, 4 June 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

MR DURWARD LELY.

The verdict of Auckland on this celebrated Scottish tenor, who made his first appearance in the Opera House on Monday last, corroborates the enthusiastic encomiums which Mr Lely has won in the South and in the Old Country. As a singer he possesses one of the most melodious, capable, and sympathetic voices it has ever been our lot to hear; but it is as a singer of Scotch songs that he makes his claim to celebrity. And very justly may he do so, for h e interprets the inimitable melodies of Scotland with an appreciation of all their most subtle elements of form and character that is rarely met with. Only Scotchmen who have lived a large part of their lives in Scotland, and in the remoter districts of the country, can be expected to have imbibed to the full the spirit and flavour which breathes in the words and music of Caledonia’s songs. To them Mr Lely’s voice must be as rich in deathless associations as the sound of the Alp horn is to the Switzer far from his native mountains. One can understand, therefore, the intensity of the enthusiasm which the people of Dunedin displayed in connection with Mr Lely’s concerts. And though this part of the colony cannot furnish entire audiences so quick to be moved at the very heart by the Old World songs which Mr Lely sings, still it is astonishing how unexpectedly appreciative of the delicacies of Scottish pathos and humour an assemblage chiefly composed of Englishmen can be when appealed to by a master. Sung as we usually hear them sung, on a concert platform, the numbers with which Mr Lely scores his biggest successes fall on the audience like the good seed on the rocky soil. The outlandish vocables convey no meaning. But in the case of Mr Lely, though the actual words of his songs may occasionally surpass the comprehension of his hearers, he manages none the less to convey to them the sentiment, so that while the brain may miss the letter the heart understands the spirit. The prefatory remarks with which he introduces each song also does a great deal to aid his audience to the fullest enjoyment of them. He takes us into .an atmosphere redolent of all that is Scotch, into the very atmosphere of the song, so to speak, before he opens his lips to sing. We are already half Scotchmen before he sounds his initial note. Even the Cockney who was never out of the sound of Bow Bells before he came to the colony falls under the spell, and for the moment seems to feel the fresh air blowing from the heather hills, or the pleasant odour of the peat fire through the door of the thatched cottage. And before the song is finished, so absolutely Caledonian does he feel in every fibre that he may well suspect it all a trick of atavism —an inheritance from some long-forgotten ancestor who crossed the border into England and never went back to his own country. Certainly to hear Mr Lely ‘Annie Laurie,’ or ‘Come Under My Plaidie,’ or ‘Alister McAlister.’ or ‘O a’ the Airts the Wind can Blaw,’ is a revelation to most people; even to a great many Scotch people: and the most circumscribed Sassenach cannot fail to carry away with him some inkling of the rich humour and deep tenderness characteristic of Scottish song. Mr Lely is accompanied on the piano bv his wife, who does ample justice to the music and her husband s vocal powers. Fraulein Elly Fuchs, the voung violinist who has been in Auckland before, takes part in the present series of concerts, and adds in no small degree to the variety of the entertainment. At Monday’s concert she played Sauret’s ‘Mazurka, Kaff s Cavatina,’ and a ‘Barcarolle. She was accompanied on the occasion by Miss Mr Lely’s season will last all this week.