MUSIC NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1159, 27 June 1912, Page 18

MUSIC NOTES.

(By

“G” String.)

About the middle of last century there was no light opera writer more popular nor one with a more perfect

control of exquisite natural melody than Offenbach, whose delightful "Tales of Hoffmann” has just been produced in Melbourne by the Quinlan Grand Opera Company. But it is only in the above work that he showed the world how great a loss his devotion to the lighter phases of his profession made for the realms of grand opera. One would think he had done this single great work as a monument to the fact that he was greater evidently than he seemed.

Mr John McCormack, the wellknown Irish tenor, returns to America for another tour next season, during which he will appear with the Boston Opera Company for a number of performances.

One of the “hits” in the production of “The Crown of India” at the Lon-

don Coliseum just now is a song sung by Mis§ Marion Beeley. It was written for her by Sir Edward Elgar, and is based on an air he heard in an Indian mosque. Miss Beeley is a young contralto from Lancashire.

Amongst the many beautiful gifts Miss Lalla Miranda, of the Quinlan Grand Opera Company, received during her appearances in Grand Opera on the Continent are a diamond and turquoise ring from the Princess of Luxembourg, and a diamond brooch from the Queen of Holland.

The London Symphony Orchestra won great praise from the American critics who, however, reserved their choicest adjectives for the conducting of Herr Nikisch. Mr John Coates, the famous tenor of the Quinlan Grand Opera Company, has many interesting stories to tell of his friends, Sir Edward Elgar and Mr Granville Bantock. The admiration of these two great Eng-

lish composers for the greatest of England'tenors is very well known. Sir Edward it was who bestowed on Mr Coates the nickname of the “Arch Chanter John,” by which the Yorkshire tenor is now known to most of his intimate friends. Mr Bantock,

who once said to Mr Coates, “You are the pioneer of the modern in music, with a vengeance,” has also written of his friend’s singing, “It is the bellest of bel cantos.” Richter has also honoured the famous tenor with his intimate friendship, and the letters from these great musicians to him would form a very interesting chapted on England’s musical development.

Miss Gertrude Lonsdale, the con-

tralto, whose singing has been much admired by New Zealand musiclovers, recently made her first ap-

pearance in London since her return from her round-the-world tour with the Shefiield Choir. Miss Lonsdale first visited New Zealand as .a member of the Watkins-Mills concert party.

The telephone has been called into the services of organ builders for tuning purposes. The Chicago “Diapason,” a journal devoted to the organ, states that on many of the instruments of a prominent American firm telephone transmitters are fixed permanently above the pitch octave in the diapason department, and the whole organ is so wired that when the tuner is at work he can, by manipulating a plug, hear through the receiver attached to his head the exact pitch of the diapason pipes. It is to be hoped that the tuner is his own “exchange,” otherwise the troubles provided by the telephone g

would be the last drop in the cup of bitterness in the life of the fixer of the "tempered” scale.