MUSIC NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 22 August 1912, Page 22

MUSIC NOTES.

(By

“G” String.)

The Brighton (Eng.) Town Council has decided that a musical festival at a cost not exceeding £lOOO, shall be held in the town in November next. It would be a good thing if a few of the Municipal Councils in New ZeaOn the shores of Lake Geneva, westward from the small town of Morgee, and toward the village of Islochenay, there is a deeply wooded park, in the centre of which stands a Swiss mansion, the Chalet de Riond Bosson. The park is open to the public, but an inner gate, leading to the chalet, bears the warning legend in French, “Do not enter without ringing. Look out for the dogs!” Here lives and labours Ignace Jan Paderewski, “cheered by the affectionate companionship of his second wife, who was land took a leaf out of the Brighton Council’s bok.

I live wholly in my music.—(Beethoven.

the Baroness Helene von Rosen, and happy in the possession of his merited but almost fabulous earnings.”

During the Wellington season of the “Ben Hur” Company, Miss Gladys Baker was shown two songs written and composed by Mr John McGiashan, of Wellington, and she was so impressed with them that it is her intention to introduce them to concert audiences on her return to the Commonwealth. The songs are entitled “Ken ye the Glen?” and “The Lad that Comes -at E’en,” and both are considered to possess more than usual merit. Miss Baker, who possesses a fine contralto voice, is a daughter of the well-known actor Mr. Harry Baker, and is confident of making a success of both songs.

“A Critic and Reviewer,” in the coarse or a letter to a Lonaon musical paper, says:—“At the present day the readiness to invite judgment upon work suomitted to the public is not accompanied oy a corresponding readiness to submit to adverse criticism, and composers, publishers, and performers at times are only too prone to charge critics with either ignorance, prejudice, or even malice. In the course of my experience I Have known performers threaten libel suits, publishers refuse to advertise, and composers breathe fire and slaughter, because the critic has ventured to form an independent judgment. Yet it ought to be evident that the real friend is the man who points out imperfections, and not he who, regardless of facts, says smooth things. I venture humbly to submit that critics, though liable to err like anyone else, carry out their work on the whole honestly, and to the best of their ability, recognising that their ifirst duty is to the public. If everybody concerned would only recognise this, how much happier would they be! In conclusion, let me quote the saying of a deceased statesman, “Those who play at bowls must expect rubbers.” If people cannot take the rough with the smooth they had better not venture into public.”

Leschetizky is said to have once made a wager that he would teach his servant, a man of no musical ability, to play a Chopin nocturne with taste and correctness, and he succeeded.

“What is that piece you are playing?” asked the New York hostess. It used to be Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” replied the musician, “but I have put it into rag time and entitled it ‘The Reno Quickstep.’ ” In Solomon’s Temple, according to Josephus, there were 20,000 harps and psalteries of solid copper and 20,000 trumpets of silver.