MR SIDNEY WILLIAMSON'S RECITAL.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14980, 29 May 1914, Page 10

MR SIDNEY WILLIAMSON'S RECITAL.

The recitals of Mr Sidney Williamson, which liavo done so much in the pass few years to raise tho test© in vocal art anions us, were resumed last night at tho Alexandra Hall in the presence of a very largo and discriminating audience. As usual, Almost -only great names of writers of the first rank wero represented, 'with admirable specimens of their art, and,, as usual, there wub tho often censured excess;in quantity amounting without an appreciable 'interval to a total with the encores of twenty-live songs. It is a task beyomi the powers of endurance of almost any singer and listener. They must be of necessity of unequal impression in interpretation. The programme was hardly as judiciously selected as in.past seatons, for the songs in their sequence wore not as happily contrasted as might have been. There was a preponderance of songs of the slow and sombre type, some of them in fact more suitable for the drawing-room than'for the concerfc-hall. those by Robert Franz for instance. The audienoo seemed inatinctively to feel the influence of the choice made and only after "the VerJi Aria and when the songs by Eichard Strauss and Hugo Wolf were reached those writers who build up their songs with the charm of a constantly varying omotional expression, that enthusiastic appreciation was given vent. Anions tho best performers on the part of thu, able and temperamental vocalist may be named ''Mother' o' Mine,'! by Frank E. Tours, "J'ai pleure"' en reve," iby Hue, another "Prix de Rome" man> Loewo's beautiful "Clock," the extraordinary "Monotone Sotic" of Peter Cornelius, Schubert's "Doppolganger," Richard Strauss's "Dream in the Twilight," and "Sir Sprine," and that gem from Htt?o Wolfe pen "To Spring.' Miss Audrey Gibson carried out the great work of in some cases of extrepi© difficulty, with much taste and ability... though at times unduly repressing herself in hex modest way.