THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 231, 29 September 1928, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF MUSIC.

GOSSIP OF THE PLATFORM.

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

(By ORPHEUS.)

Don't worry about your musical taste. It will develop normally if you hear enough music, both good and bad. Form your own opinion, and use your own ears.—Sigmund Spaeth.

Mr. Franik Wilson will give a students'- 1 recital on Saturday, October 13, at which several well-known Auckland vocalists will be singing. The programme will include items by Mr. Walter Brough, Mrs. | Eva Simson (nee Robertson), Mr. Ernest Snell and Mr. Birrell O'Malley.

The programme for the Municipal Band concert to-morrow evening will include the overture to "Rienzi" (Wagner); selection, "Classica" (Ewing); selection, "The Gondoliers" (Sullivan), and the "Hallelujah Chorus" (Handel). On October 6 the band will play two new numbers of considerable interest, "Two Intermezzi from the Jewels of the Madonna" and "Virginia, a Southern Rhapsody" (Haydn Wood). The first of these, which is by Wolf-Ferrari, i 3 a most attractive piece, which will probably become one of the band's most popular "repeat" items in the future.

A "Field Day for British and American Music Educationists" was held in London on July 7- The day was occupied with two sessions, one at the Aeolian Hall, and another at Amen House, and concluded with dinner at night. The meeting w«s "open to everyone engaged in any branch of musical or general education," and the cnly charge made was 10/ for the dinner. The speakers included Sir Hugh Allen, Mr. Percy Scholes, Dr. Ernest Bullock, Dr. George Dyson, arid Mr. A. Forbes Milne. The event was, as the "Musical Times" says, "astonishingly successful."

The term "jazz" is becoming rather meaningless. A short time ago it waa applied almost exclusively to the syncopated music of American dance-pieces. Then, when "jazz" composers like George Gershwin began to write "serious" music, the term was extended to cover this class of composition. Its use in that connection is profoundly unsatisfactory. It might just as easily include Beethoven's "Pathetic" Sonata as, say, Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Both these pieces have syncopation in them, but though they differ widely from each other they are both very far removed from the jazz music of the dance record. As far as I can see there is no warrant for giving the "Rhapsody in Blue" any special label. It is simply music, just as the "Pathetic" Sonata is music, and it should be thought of as such. Probably as time goes on the word "jazz" will be used to signify the worst features of contemporary dancemusic, and be used exclusively as a term of abuse.

Recordings of jazz music are infinitely better to-day than they were five years ago, but in one respect the older records as a whole are preferable. I refer to the matter of the "vocal refrain." In those days comparatively few included thi3 feature, whereas nowadays it is becoming increasingly difficult to procure good recordings without a verse being sung by some whining American tenor. There is nothing wrong with the notion of including a vocal refrain, but on© would imagine that singers whose voices were not quite so offensively nasal, and who showed some shreds of respect for the English language, would be employed occasionally in order to cater for the English and Colonial market. Can it be that most people in, say, New Zealand, prefer the American intonation? As a New Zealander I refuse to entertain such a humbling thought.

In a sub-leader headed "The Music Cure," the London "Morning Post" says:

A teacher of music has been recommending singing as a specially healthy exercise for delicate people, suffering from chest or throat trouble. They are to sing not because they want to, but because it is good for them. The prescription is, no doubt, admirable from the delicate people's point of view, but the rest of the world may be excused for regarding it a little askance; because the gift of song is not necessarily associated with weak health; and there are few more terrible afflictions than to be compelled to listen to the singing of those who have neither voice nor skill. The thought of it suggestß the "dear, dead days," let us hope Uteyond recall, of evening parties to which every guest brought his music, and at which it was necessary to listen to feeble renderings of all the popular songs and ballads of the day, and to murmur "Thank you" at the end of each performance, with the expression of one who had enjoyed a rare and unexpected treat.

The Auckland Society of Musicians, which held a most successful concert last Tuesday night, is the largest body of its kind in New Zealand. It has been in existence about twenty-five years, but it is only lately that it has become a powerful instrument for the advancement of music. It is the primary function of the society to band the musical folk of the city together and to bring them into touch with one another, and the extent of its success iu this direction is indicated by the size of its membership roll. This already contains over two hundred names, including associate members, and as the society is open to anybody at all who is interested in music, this number will undoubtedly be increased as time passes. One of the minor offices it perforins is the entertainment of visiting artists, and at these gatherings the members are given the opportunity of meeting distinguished musicians on a less formal footing than that provided by the concert hall. It is the intention of the society to celebrate in some way the forthcoming Schubert Centenary (which occurs in November), and this will probably take the form of a Schubert concert.