MUSIC NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1589, 7 October 1920, Page 30

MUSIC NOTES.

(By

"G” String.)

According to many people “art and sport do not row in the same boat,” but Mr. Verbrugghen in a recent lecture at the Sydney Conservatorium showed the fallacy of that contention. There is, however, a greater misunderstanding of music than this. The man of business is apt to be more interested in accumulation and conservation than in creation or evolution. To him, generally' speaking, all artistic activity is waste of good time, and energy —and music is the least excusable form of waste. And he is not altogether to blame, for the musician should cultivate a better, loftier, and more serious conception of his art. He should demonstrate beyond question that music is a science, that it ranks with the highest intellectual pursuits, and that its level is far above the plane of common observation. John Amadio, Melbourne’s favourite flautist, who, not content with the favours and financial tributes of his native city (he cleared £BOO out of his last concert), packed his fife and betook himself to London to shake the little old place up a bit, has been getting it severely from the critics in the Big Smoke, says the “Bulletin.” They find all sorts of defects in his breathing and fingering, and are discovering other important technical

defects. By them, John, who had been accepted as easily Australia’s best (where does John Lemmoae come in? “G String” asks), is relegated to the second class, three seats back, but is comforted with the promise that, if lie is a good boy and practises assiduously under a master he may be able to play the flute quite well one of these days. And all this in spite of the fact that Melba boomed John assiduously, and gave every assurance that his living equal with the fife was not visible above the horizon.