Music and Drama.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 18, 30 April 1913, Page 13

Music and Drama.

By

BAYREUTH.

BOOKINGS. (Dates subject to alteration.) H.M. THEATRE, AUCKLAND. May 12 to 17. —Hugard’. May 22 to June 7—J. C. Williamson, Ltd. June 9 to June 25 —Geo. Marlow, Ltd. June 26 to July 5—J. C. Williamson, Ltd. J uly 7 to 19—Alien Doone. August 4to 16—J. C. Williamson, Ltd. August 28 to September 27—Eranscombe Co. October Ito 11—J. C. Williamson, Ltd. AUCKLAND PICTURE SHOWS. Globe Theatre, Queen Street—Continuous Have You Learned to Listen? < HERE are many people whose t|l hearts find an echo in Browning’s I beautiful lines: " Who hears music, feels his solitude Peopled at once.” But one has only to go to an average classical concert to realise that although the majority of men and women love music with " all their hearts,” they do not love it with their brains as well. To be thoroughly appreciated music must be understood, and as it is a complex art, it cannot be expected that real understanding will come without diligent and systematic study. Everyone, whether so-called “ musical ” or not, can appreciate a simple melody, but it is wholly unreasonable to expect an untrained ear fully to- appreciate the exquisite harmonies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, er delight in the move modern methods of Wagner, Strauss, and Debussy. How to Enjoy the Masters. For years past the unprofessional lover of music has had to grope his way through masses of unfamiliar, and to him often painful, harmonies, until after many years of concert going he begins to understand a little of what music really means. But it has been •left to Mr Stewart Macpherson, the author of ’’ Music and its Appreciation” and other educational works, boldly to suggest that the art of listening intelligently should be seriously taught in every girls’ and boys’ school. The average parent, says Mi’ Macpherson, has quite an erroneous impression of what “ learning music ” really means. They think that if the child is given a few years* piano or violin teaching his musical education is complete. People often do not for one moment consider whether the child has any natural aptitude for his instrument, or in fact for any instrument. If he does not “ get on” he is dubbed unteachable, and his musical education is brought to an abrupt finish, or, failing this, he is made, to spend so much time in practising that through very weariness from trying to do the impossible, he comes to -regard all music as the essence of boredom To Give Children » Chance. All children should have the chance of learning as instrument, hut if through the formation of their hands or through any other physical disability they do not make good executants, their musical education sbotn-u only be stopped as far as tire actual instrumental part is concerned. It showld be borne in mind that many thoroughly musical people are quito without power of giving it rnstrumenta’ expression. To learn to listen to and appreciate with real perception, the material of the musie, should therefor* be the aim of every student of mnsieTo further this, Mr Macpherson pleads for the formation of Musical Appreciation Classes in all schools. These classes should not be limited to those pupils who are learning in instrument, but should form part of -the general work of the sebool. The clauses, naturally, must be arranged in varions grade*, so as to suit the ages and musical knowledge of the pupils.

Beginning with the kindergarten, a sense of time and rhythm should be taught by marching and other free rhythmic movements, and a sense of tune by the singing of simple songs and learning through sol-fa the various Bounds of the scale, first being brought

into touch with such things through the medium of interesting music which they can understand. This should be followed by class singing with ear training and singing at sight. Then the pupils are ready for the Appreciation Class. In this the teachers should play to the pupils, choosing quite simple pieces at first. As the class advances in understanding, sonatas, symphonies, and other works should be studded. The purport and form of each composition should be carefully explained during each lesson, so that the pupil understands as far as possible the composer’s meaning and plan. In dealing with such things as symphonies, quartets, ete., Mr Macpherson suggests that the teacher of the class should make use of the good solo or duet arrangements now published of the best works, or, if his own powers of execution are not sufficient to cope with their difficulties, a “Piano-player ’* might be used instead. The great point in “ Appreciation ” work is to get the pupils familiarised with the actual music, so that when they have the chance of going to a good orchestral or chamber concert they shall be able to go with ears and mind already prepared, and receptive of the finished and complete performance. Weird Taste of Music. Odd as it may seem to more matter-of-fact individuals, there are many persons who actually see sounds and see odours, or more rarely hear pain or light. Tonal vision—that is, the hearing of light or colour—is very rare: not so is coloured hearing, of which there are almost as many varieties of as persons who report it. For some time the colouration extends only to voices or to Christian names. •They may compare the strawberry-col-oured voice of one friend with the mottled Easter-egg voice of another; they may ponder the relative merits of a blue name or a brown one. Vowels alone may be coloured, and, perhaps, differently coloured when spoken in one voice than when spoken in another. Agreement there is none as to their proper colouration; the letter a, for instance, may range from the black given it by the poet Rimbaud to green, or orange. For other persons music, and only onusic, is coloured. The pitch of a note may give its hue, or the instrument on which it is played may determine the tint. Low-pitched notes may range from purple to black; high-pitched ones from azure to white. Or each instrument may have its own colour; white for the harp, orange-gold for the horn, mauve for the viola. Orchestral music may become a veritable cascade of rainbows. If perchance one gets form as well as colour; from music, the possibilities of arabesque are multiplied. A teacher of design attends concerts in order to see new patterns that she may reproduce. Tastes arid odours, as well as sound 3, may become colours. I am acquainted (says an American writer! with a young man whose mouth is flooded with luminous pink whenever lie tastes wintergreen. Peppermint and elo-ves. on the other hand, taete a dark, rough green; anise gives a beautiful black. Thfs young man is greatly distressed when food tastes a colour different from the colour its looks. Yellow peppermints are for him an abomination, as are pink teas, also. He toff, uses bis taste colours Tn discrimination, and is able to idenfify exceedingly weak solutions by tlw> colours they arouse. But solutions giving the same colour puzzle him. Thus he is unable to dust ingtiisb between a solution at quinine and one of red pepper, because both give the same orange red taste. Odours wbipt seen usually surround with colours the scented object, or fill the space from which the odour proceeds. But in one peculiar ease the hue of the odour was seen by the person who experienced it on his own forehead. Pain may change into sound. TVs are told, for example, of a psychological toothache; one, that is, you can hear; and I have myself experienced a symphonic ear ache, one that most considerately translated itself into orchestral terms. Touch, in turn, has Its visual

analogies. There are bright touches just as there are sharp whisper?. What is probably the most curious ease of sense transposition on record has been reported by Professor Pierce —■ that of the young lady who tastes sounds. Imagine, if you ean, a roast beef voice, and then a banana one. Think of being tantalised, as the young lady confesses she was, by being forced to listen to a lecture when hungry. Theoretically, it would seem that a confusion of any two senses might occur, but as -a matter of fact, not all of the possible exchanges have been reported. Xo ease is on record of odours shifted into sound, although I have heard a little girl speak of fragrant music. These sense transpositions usually occur in a systematic and uniform way. Yet there are many reports of a merely occasional substitution, as. for instance, my own symphonic ear-ache, whieb, unfortunately, was a unique experience. Although not subject to coloured hearing, I have seen on awakening from a deep sleep an early morning whistle as a dark -purple streak against the window curtain. Fevers apparently may cause such substitutions of one sense by another; certain drugs also have the power of effecting such exchanges. Gautier it was who said of hashish that it enabled him. to hear the noise of colour's. Seeing Sounds. Leaving the explanation of what we may eall true synesthesia to the future investigator, we may ask the .relation between such experiences and the imitation of them in literature and criticism. One of the curiosities of modern criticism is, in fact, found in the tendency to transfer sense adjectives from one province to another. We hear of colour harmonies, melodic lines, frosty musie, fragrant nocturnes, noisy colours. Modulations from pigeon egg blue to Nile green, most misty and subtle modulations, dissolve before one’s eye, and; for a moment the sky is peppered with tiny stars in doubles, each independently tinted. Or from Swinburne, writing Blake’s early poems: “They have a fragrance of sound, a melody of colour, in a time when the best verses produced had merely the arid perfume of powder.’’ Modern French poetry is full of such sense confusions. Rimbaud writes the “-Sonnet of -the Vowels.” Baudelaire sings of the correspondences of perfumes, colour’s and sounds. English poetry makes less use of such an effect, although Swinburne uses visual and auditory terms interchangeably. He describes “ song visible ” and sings ef “ Light heard as music, music seen as light,” and of “ fine honey of song notes goldener than gold.” What shall we say of such transfer of sense adjectives 1 Is it a sign of degeneracy of style, a straining after artificial 'effect ? Is at a sign of a new florescence of -language, a language evocative of delicate emotion effects. Or is it rooted, in actual experience so that we may conclude that poets and writers of imaginative prose are more than the everyday man subject to a malady of the senses ?

To attempt, first, an answer to the last question. Scientists who have investigated synesthesia have from the beginning been interested in the question whether poets and musicians are particularly subject to true synesthesia. This question they have answered in general in. the negative. French poets and critics have indeed almost adopted audition colouree (coloured hearing) as a canon of art, hut even so, most of them distinguished true from artistic synesthesia. The first ds purely indi■vidual, random, erratic, of no significance for art, whose appeal -must be universal. Among English poets Swinburne's poetry suggests the possibility of the poet having been subject to tonal vision. Probably, however, he exchanged his terms with deliberate attempt. Shelley’s use of eense comparisons is even more evidently deliberate. Ho often, for instance, uses odour in an odd way. He describes the pealing of hyacinth bulbs as an odour within the sense, and compares softs to homeless odours. But his comparisons are too varied, too definitely Instituted, to indicate a true confusion of sound or light with odour. Exploration of English poetry resulted Jn the discovery of one case of true Synesthesia, one that is even attested by the poet, Poe, who frequently in his poetry speaks of the sound of the coming darkness, confesses in a footnote to “Al Aaar&af:” "I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stold over the horizon.”

Popularising a Song. In the following article Mr Hermann E, Darewski, a well-known writer ot popular song% tells how his work is done. He has made small fortunes out of some of his songs which have been a good one. Then you may begin to try ’■ popular hits.” Says Mr Darewski: —■ “ First off write your song, and write and make a success of it. Merely writing a good song does not mean that it is going to be a success. There is many g fine song that has not been played on mouth-organs, and if it has, not been played on mouth-organs it was not a popular success. When every mouthorgan in the town is playing it then somebody has made a fortune out of the song, and if the author was a wise man he was the somebody. “I have written close upon 1,500 songs. So I ought to know. .Some of them have been real popular successes—played on all the mouth-organs—so I do know. These included. ‘Sue, Sue, Sue,’ ‘Au Revoir, My Little Hyacinth.’ ‘Humpty and Dumpty,’ ‘Bombardier,’ ‘ln the Twi-Twi-Twilight,’ ‘1 Want to See More of You,' ‘Mamie May,’ ‘1 used to Sigh for the Silvery Moon,' ‘On the Silvery Sands,’ ‘ He’s a Yery Old Friend of Mine,’ and ‘Billy.’ ‘‘lt is, of course, a decided advantage for a song-writer to have a star vaudeville artist who can be depended upon io sing his songs and to get the most out of every one of them. The popular song is not always the song the composer likes. It i,s the song he makes with the public taste in his mind all the time. It has to be deliberately and carefully written for that taste. And then it has to be just as deliberately and carefully popularised. Songs don't become popular. They are made popular. That is the story 1 am going to tell. “I have been fortunate in having a number of really clever lyric writers to Collaborate with me. The great success of these lyricists is that they are experts of their profession—men with ideas ‘ —men who know how. They always put jnto their work something new and catchy, something that engraves itself On your mind immediately. The ordinary verse-writer would probably have written *ln the Twi-Twi-Twilight,' which took England by storm, as follows:—■ Tn the twilight. In the beautiful t wilight. . They all go out for a walk, A quiet,old spoon and a talk. In the twilight. “If it had been written like that it would never have been worth twopence. Compare it with this: — tn the twi-twi-twilight. Out in the beautiful twilight. They all go out for a walk, walk, walk, A quiet old spoon and a talk, talk, talk, In the twi-twi-twilight. “That, set to a catchy melody, spelt success from the minute it was produced. Of course it looks easy when you are shown how'. The Public Learn to Like It. “Once yon have the words ami music complete, you get a singer for the song. This is all-important. If the singer likes the song, you sell him or her the singing right of if for a price mutually agreed upon. That is the first step—to find your artist ami sell the singing rights. “Having fixed with the singer, the author and composer proceed to see the publisher. Few people outuide the business know the planning and trouble that are connected with the publication of a popular Song. The publisher hoars the Bong, and at once asks if you have fixed with an artiste. You tell him that you have, and give particulars about when and where the artist • is singing il. A representative of the publishing firm is then sent along to the niusii-lrills to hoar how the public receive the song. If the song is a hit this representative reports on rt accordingly. The publisher sends for you and tells you that he hart decided to accept the sotfg for publtcition. You then arrange terms. Some writers sell outright. I always publish on a royalty. This gives me i clnnee ot making anything from L's to €5,01(11 for as long as mv song sells I get a (shire of whatever money il bring: in. 1 like to gamble on mv work. “ J lie next Mop k 111 it you th f ‘ «ong to the publisher, who, in return, gives you oii u into r taking, to pty you a percentage of the marked iellihg K prieb. Ton per cent, on a 2/ copy works out al roughly 2|d, and ou a (ki edition |d. Ut

course, in the 6d edition it is the wonderful quantity sold that tells. Some idea of what that quantity is may be gathered from the fact that out of one of my songs on a id royalty I made £BOO in six months, and the song is still selling. That was one of my big hits.” Making a Popular Success. These arrangements having been made, you hand over the manuscript, which is sent to the “revising-room.” There an expert musician and an expert author go through the ebng note by note and word •by word. Not a dot escapes their welltrained eyes. They make any corrections they deem necessary, and the song is sent to the printer, where it is gone over again before being handed to the engraver, who engraves it on plates. In the meantime instructions have been given to the artist in another department to design a suitable cover. A date is fixed for both cover and plates to be ready, when they are sent to the printer, who also lias a date to keep to. The first six copies are sent off to Washington, U.S.A., and on a certain date at the same time the song is copyrighted simultaneously in London and Washington, which secure* the world’s rights of it. All this while the song has been sung by t-he artiste every night at the halls, and has been growing on the public. Copies are now placed on the market, and organised effort made to excite demand for it. Special copies of the song are sent into the professional department of the publishing house. These are called “professional copies.” This department, though not known to the outside public, is the pivot on which the whole business of popularising a song turns. This department is in touch with every artiste on the vaudeville, the musical comedy, and comic opera stage. If the song 'is a big success in the halls, the chief of this department nurses it for six or seven months. ■ Then as pantomime, which is a very big feature in Great Britain, draws near, he gets in touch with all the leading managers, proprietors, and pantomime artistes. They all call at the professional department, and the song 'is played over to all of them. The effects to stage it properly are given to them. If the song has been a big musichall hit, and all the panto, managers are una'himoii'S about it, arrangements are made to make it a big feature. It is rehearsed over and over till the purchaser is satisfied with it. Everything is ready for the opening. Then in about 250 pantomimes your song is sung simultaneously in one evening, and for six or eight weeks afterwards. You can realise the sale that means. But it does not stop there. While the pantomime people were rehearsing it the •barrel-organ ’makers, the record-makers for the gramophones, the roll-makers for the mechanical piano-players were all hard at work recording and making the song. All the restaurants ask for orchestral parts, and these are sent to them. Within a week the song is heard wherever you turn —at theatres, ballrooms, musical halls, restaurants, on gramophones, piano players, barrel organs. It is sung in the streets. It is

whistled in the streets. It is played on the mouth-organs. Y-our song is a big hit, and you smile contentment and wait for the first month’s cheque as a reward for your nine months of work and worry. J* “ Open Windows.” The latest files contain notices of Mr. A. E. W. Mason’s new play, “Open Windows,” produced in London last month. The critic of the “Daily News” in his notice says:—“Had Mr. A. E. W. Mason called in a dramatist to give shape to his ideas, ‘Open Windows’ might have been a great play. The dramatist would have remodelled most of the dialogue, and, if of the modern school and not a hack playwright, he would not have kept the whole question of the play for treatment of the last act alone. In ’Open Windows’ what the characters think and feel should be the chief concern, and not what they do. Mr. Mason has treated his drama as a play of intrigue, something in the style of Sardou and Bernstein, for two of the three acts, and when he has at last to come to grips with his problem the opportunity slips from his grasp because he has not a dramatist’s concentrated force and suggestiveness. “The problem itself is of supreme interest. A young girl is engaged to be married to an explorer, and, being too poor to marry before he departs on a hazardous adventure, they anticipate marriage. As soon as the girl finds she njay become a mother, she sets about for some means of averting shame from herself and her child. (I may point out in passing that had she loved the man she would in real life have faced the shame, and in her case it would not have been difficult, since she was an art student in Paris; but let the problem stand in the author’s terms.) Twenty Years After. “Well, Cynthia Harland marries John Herrick, a man she had several times refused. He knows nothing of the circumstances; and they and the child, a daughter, live happily for; twenty years. Herrick raises himself to high government position. Then at last the real father comes on the scene—the reason why he does not before need not be related, for it does not dramatically matter, although Mr. Mason makes much concern about it. “The real father, Philip Hammond, does not know there was a child, but her age puts him on his guard, and he learns the truth by intuition. Herrick, being made suspicious by his wife’s manner, also learns the truth. The first two acts are entirely devoted to the exposition of these circumstances. "Mr. Mason has done it with ingenuity, •but the real centre and interest of the drama is in the last act. “.What will the two men do? Herrick at first.is for a separation. He will take care lie is at fault in the eyes of the world. His wife, who loves him, has to consent, although her heart is breaking. But Herrick counts without the tie of his affection for the girl, Elsie, who has been his child for twenty years, and he sees

the impossibility of telling her. It will mean, among other things,_that she will break off her engagement with a young man she loves, for Elsie is proud. Then Hammond is determined to have his daughter away. Fighting It Out. “The two men fight it out, quietly but in. deadly earnest. Herrick uses every argument in his power, but Hammond is adamant. His life has been ruined by a disgrace; he has sunk low in his own esteem, and he will not forego the selfish luxury of knowing that Elsie has to recognise him as father. Like Herrick, his determination is broken by the girl herself, radiant with happiness at her engagement. She is just going to a dance where she will meet her lover, and Hammond has not the heart to shatter her dream of happiness. Parental love has its rights, but so has such love as Herrick feels for Elsie. He has been the true if not the actual father. ‘We do not know enough of Mr, Mason's characters to feel that they are real, and, therefore, the problem loses its force. But the play, with all its faults, is sustained in interest, and possibly it will prove a success. Only it might have been a fine play,” J* J* A Dramatist Who Never Invents. Mr. M. Somerset Maughan, the author of “Lady Frederick,” produced in New Zealand by Ethel Irving, has been chatting about the drama to the New York “Dramatic Mirror.” “I never invent anything," said Mr. Maughan. “Lifecan be seen from any angle. If you observe carefuly what happens at a funeral you will be struck by the fact that any untoward event, any little accident, will .set the mourners laughing hysterically, the absurdity of the thing stands out With startling vividness —they have forgotten for the time being how this distressing .affair of burying someone can he seen from the comic angle. The accident recalls it. So it goes through life -—any situation can be seen from the comic angle. When 1 first wrote plays, I wrote serious, often gloomy, pieces. But I was using time and again the same people and the same situations that I use to-day in my light comedies. The difference arose through a difference in viewpoint. 1 saw then from the tragic angle what I.see to-day from the comic.’-’ “But, surely,” remarked the interviewer, “seeing life or situations in life steadily from one angle is not all there is to writing a play?” “A play consists of three parts,” Mr. Maughan replied ‘epigrammatically, “the play as the author writes it. the actors, and the audience. And I mean by that, a playwright must remember he is writing for everybody; he must put in something subtle enough to please the judicious, something broadly amusing enough to entertain the uneducated, something to flatter the cynic, something to stir the sentimental He must, after he has allowed for the audience, see to it that the actors interbret the play intelligently. One hardly realises how easy it is to write an artistic play and, if one is keen and shrewd,

how easy it is to write a successful play. What makes the real difficulty is to combine the two- —to write at the same time both a popular and artistie play. If I were writing just for an audience of ' philosophers I would have no trouble at all. - ’ - Mr. Maughan was silent regarding the difficulty of placing a play once it is written. If rumour does not lie, lie almost a wearied of interviewing managers before his first play was staged. And then, luck of lucks, he had three running simultaneously in London. Of Ganthony, the author of "A Message from Mars,” it is said that he spent the term of Jacob’s wooing before he could induce anyone to believe the piece was worth producing. “ The Dandies.” The name of Edward Branecombe ie one which is a guarantee that no matter what amusement attraction is under his direction the public can rest assured that it will have presented an entertainment which bears the hall-mark of refinement. During the winter months of last year Mr Branscombe sent “The Dandies” to New Zealand, and this excellent company met with such success that on May 10, at the Town Hall, " The Dandies ” will commence their 1913 New Zealand tour. I understand from Mr Scott Colville (Mr Branecombes manager) that the company opening here is considered in Australia to be probably the finest combination of versatile artists which has ever appeared op the other side. There are eleven ladies and gentleman in the company, and they have just completed a five months’ season in Brisbane, where they have put on no less than 540 items, and one lady has seventy-five songs to her credit. I have no doubt that many will remember “ The Scarlet Troubadours,” who toured this country recently, and the many admirers of the Mieses Lily and Rita Fitzgerald and Mr Ford Waltham will be pleased to hear that they are members of “ The Dandies.” The other members of the company are new to this country, and each one has been specially selected for the New Zealand tour. <£ JX Possibilities of Music in New Zealand. Th the hurry of departure for Auckland for good, after a long residence in Wellington, and intimate knowledge of its musical taste, capacity, and material, Mr. Maughan Barnett found time to give an 'interview to the ’’Post” oh the possibilities of music in New Zealand and on the musical taste of Wellington; also on competitions. He was asked what opportunities were afforded in New Zealand ' for students intending to seriously take tip music as a profession to thoroughly equip themselves? “At present,” he replied, “there are no Opportunities for students gaining that all-round musical education which is absolutely essential. They can get admirable teaching in separate studies, such as the piano and other instruments, but there are not the sufficient opportunities for them of gaining the necessary knowledge that orchestral work, chamber music, and opera provide. Take, for instance, the teacher of the pianoforte. He really requires a knowledge of orchestral and vocal work to help him in tlie matter of interpretation of pianoforte music. In Von Bulow’s edition, for example, the orchestral colouring of certain passages is not infrequently suggested. I am a strong supporter of the proposal to establish a Conservatoire of Music in New Zealand, provided such an institution were run on certain lines and held itself aloof from holding local examinations, which do not add to the musical advancement of the country. The Conservatoire should have chamber and orchestral concerts, at which students should be required to attend, and the re-’ hearsale also; At these concerts the student would obtain intimate knowledge of the instrumental work of the great masters. It should be compulsory for. the professional student to go through a course extending over several years’ training. While, of course, it is impossible to guarantee success in teaching, the public, at any rate, would have the assurance that the student who had taken up the profession had had a thorough training. It is of paramount importance that the teaching staff of such an institution should be of such a standing as to inspire implicit confidence on the part of the public.” Competitions were referred to, and Mr. Barnett was asked what bearing, if any, they had upon the formation of good

musical taste on the individual , and among the people generally? Based on his former experience as a judge of competitions. Mr. Barnett was --strongly opposed to them. Why? Because he considered that the sole end in view of the student competing was to win the particular competition, and the idea of studying music for its own sake was thus lost sight of. Moreover, false impressions as to ability were given, the prize-winner ofteu being but the best of a poor lot. Any external means of creating an interest in the art was attended by great and by no means imaginary dangers. As for the effects upon audiences. his impressions were that a large part of those who attended went to the competitions for the fun of the thing. J* The Globe Theatre. A fine programme of the very best and most up-to-date pictures has been selected by the management of the Globe Theatre in anticipation of the requirements of the big holiday crowds this week. The entertainment continues day and night, and will doubtless prove a strong attraction. Stray Notes. Sir Hubert Parry’s new symphony, recently played by the London Philharmonic, has curious headings for its parts. The four movements played continuously are called “Stress,” “Love,” “Play,” and “Now,” and the themes of the first are described by such phrases as “brooding thought in the presence of tragedy,” “wrestling with the meaning of it,” “revolt,” “tokens of suffering,” and “the pity of it.” But the listener who begins with the music and works baek to the verbal description, as all real listeners must, the “London Times” remarks, generally finds that he is passing from the greater to the less—that the music has carried him so much further than the words that the latter are superfluous. The life story of J. W. Turner, the operatic singer, who died at Yardley, near Birmingham, recently, was one of strenuous effort, and more than any of his contemporaries he helped to make the fame of English opera. He succeeded the late Carl Rosa in the popular presentation of opera in English, and although he was not often seen in London in re.cent years, he had a wide and constant popularity all over the provinces. Mr Turner knew that there was an enormous public .which did not understand opera in German or Italian, and which in the provinces was too frank to pretend that it did, and to these the works of Balfe and Wallace afforded genuine enjoyment which Mr Turner provided, amassing thereby a large fortune. Among others associated' with the Turner Company were Joseph Maas, Charles Sanitley, Leslie Crotty, Georgina Ijurns, Julia Gaylord, Henry Snazelle, Marie Roze, Barton M’Guekin, Ben Davies, and Miss Don, daughter of Sir William and Lady Don. It was a combination which will long be remembered by- operagoers, and Mr Turner himself was one of its brightest stars. He was probably most successful as Don Caesar de Bazan in “Marltana,” Fra Diavolo in that opera, and Myles-na-Copaleen in “The Lily of Killarney.” Another of his famous parts was the steersman in the “Flying Dutchman.” He staged successfully “The Bohemian Girl,” “Faust,” “11 Trovatore,” “Robin Hood,” “Satanella,” “The Siege oi Rochelle,” “The Rose of Castille,” “The Puritan's Daughter,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Lucia di Lammermoor,” and many other operas. While the Wagner cliques scoffed at “The Bohemian Girl” and “Maritana,” Mr Turner everywhere found a welcome, especially as he gave tlie people first-class singers at theatre (as distinct from opera) prices. Having amassed a large fortune he settled down as a farmer at Yardley, near Birmingham, where he was a very popular figure. He was the father of J. W. C. Turner, the Worcestershire amateur cricketer, and of Vic Turner, who is a very fine slow bowler. '

•Signor Verdi was born in 1813, and Italy is preparing a great Verdi festival to take place in Parma. A large sum has been voted from public funds, and at the Municipal Theatre a series of festival performances of 'the composer’s greatest operas will be given early in the autumn of this present year. Signor Campanini will direct the festival, at which many of Italy's most famous singers have promised to appear. A special operatic performance is to be arranges! at Busseto, the little town in which Verdi was born. Evidently Italy does not consider statuary as an un-

worthy means of mcmorialixing its great men, for in Verdi’s honour a huge group of statuary is to be erected in the public square of Parma. Milan, too, in addition to a musical commemoration, is erecting a monument to the illustrious composer.

Mr. Christian Ilellemann, the new conductor of the Royal Wellington Choral Society, will take up his duties after the performance of “ Carmen ” this week. Mr. Ilellemann is a native of “New South Wales, and, with the exception of a break of a year or two spent in London, he has been located in Sydney for Hie past 14 or 15 years. Some six years ago he went to England as an advanced student, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music — the organ under Dr. Richards, the piano under Mr. Septimus Webb, and composition with Mr. Stewart Macpherson. Although he puts little weight on musical degrees, he confesses to being an Associate of the Royal College of Music. Prior to leaving for London, be composed a score of music for the Rev. Hillhouse Taylor’s drama, “ Parsifal,” produced by Mr. J. C. Williamson, with Miss Tittel Brune and Mr. Thomas Kingston in the leading parts, and conducted the orchestra himself throughout a run of fifty performances. Although he han not published much music, he has been a prolific composer of songs, and pieces for the piano and organ. In a recent interview Gustavo Kerker, composer of “The Belle of New York,” was asked how one hit the universal note which makes a musical production a world success. He answered, in effect, that it was a fluke. “Practically but one piece out of a hundred,” he said, “will be a success in another country. Take my owji experience. ‘The Bello of New York’ was the only real sucihss I had in Europe. Now this comedy was probably not intrinsically superior to many of my other successes in America. ’The Belle of New York,’ like 'The Merry Widow,’ came at the psychological moment. It just happened to 'hit.’ You can’t plan for a thing like that, and you cant exnlain it.”

On Wednesday evening (March 6) at St. James’ Hall, Sydney, Miss NewcombeHall, a New Zealand soprano, made her first appearance before a Sydney concert audience. The newcomer (says the musical critic of the “Town and Country Journal”) possesses a voice of much power and brilliancy in its upper register, but seems to have achieved effective high notes at the expense of her middle and lower register. An even tone is indispensable for anything like adequate vocal interpretation, anti although most audiences are easily enough sent into ecstasies over a ringing tone in alt, the singer who also is artist will not depend over much upon such effects for permanent success. Miss Newcombe-Hall phrases clearly and, especially in “Lovo was Meant to Make Us Glad,” “Dear Bird of Winter,” demonstrated that she ie the possessor of a musical temperament.

Whenever Paderewski gives a pianoforte recital in London, criticism is “hung up.” Under the spell of Paderewski’s playing, the Press and the public join in a chorus of admiration. Mark Hambourg is not treater! in the same way. The brilliant Russian pianist who paid three visits to Australia and New Zealand, does not fare much better now than he did when he made his first appearance in London as an “infant phenomenon.” This is what one candid critic wrote of Hanibourg’s last recitai at the Queen’s Hall: “Mark Hambourg is not of those pianists who are sticklers for tradition. He is apt to do things at which even those of his hearers who are not all for orthodoxy may well lift their brows. The truth is, of course, that Mr Hambourg often allows his exuberance to run away with him. How otherwise is one to account for the pace at which he literally romped through tho Fugue following Brahms’ famous Handel Variations? On one or two of the variations, moreover—-notably the fourth—the pianist seemed to expend an unnecessary degree of force, thereby producing an effect of violence hardly called for by the music. There is scarcely any need to add that Mr Hanibourg’s commanding technique served him admirably, both in this work and in Beethoven's 'Waldstein’ Sonata. But in the first movement of tho latter his 'whirlwind' mood again asserted itself, and tho reading generally would have gained from a fuller measure of restraint. The pianist had come brilliant moments, and if his Chopin playing at times was a littla extravagant in rubato, tlie Etude in U (Op. 10, No. 7), and some others In ths

group afforded striking examples o: In executive mastery.” The organistship of St. George’s Hal. is considered the blue ribbon of the organ profession in the United Kingdoqi, though it only carries a salary of X4OO a year, a sum not extravagant when we consider tho stipends paid to the organists of the great. English cathedrals. Mr Herbert Ellingford, who was appointed as the result of open competition (the judges sitting behind a screen) is a Mus.B. of Oxford, Associate of the Royal College of Music, and Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. He is well known as a conductor, lecturer, and recitalist, but as a concert organist he is comparatively obscure. He has held some important organ appointments,and at the date of his election to the Liverpool vacancy he was organist of the Belfast Parish Church. It is very likely that the appointment will prove one of those rare happenings i;'. music where an artist is able in open competition to raise himself from comparative obscurity and show that he is the possessor of a rare artistry hitherto hidden except to a narrow circle. The eyes of the musical world will follow with the greatest interest the future career of the new St. George’s Hall organist. The musical people of Liverpool, and, perhaps, it greater number of the not strictly musical, who justly take pride in this fins box of whistles, considered that there should be no question of an appointment outside that of Mr Lernare, the distinguished English concert organist. Indeed, throughout England, and in those parts of tho Empire where he has played, it was looked upon as just and fitting that Lernare should be appointed to the premier organ seat in tlie kingdom. But Lernare declined to submit himself to be judged by his brother experts, just like any old common or garden church organist. Mise Grace Palotta has received good news of Miss Amy Castles from a friend, who wrote to her from Vienna last month. It seems that when the Australian eantatrice made her first appearance at the Vienna Opera House late last year she soon succumbed to colds and throat trouble, but she resumed work in January, and made pronounced successes as Madame Butterfly and as Mimi, and in other characters. It is exactly three years since this lyric soprano made her grand opera debut as Cho Cho San at the Sydney Theatre Royal, and she then sang three of four roles in English. Originally she studied her repertoire in French under M. Bouhy in Paris; so that her engagement at the Imperial Opera House was preceded by arduous study of the various characters in German.