MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 9

MUSIC.

(BY STI/VIUB.) A Melba Hall. . When the Premier of Victoria Olr. Murray) promised 11.-;>t a suitable building, with foncort-hall attached, would be erected l.or the Melbourne University ConservatoriUm, iMadame Melba sealed the promise by offering to come from any part of the world to open the hall, which it. has always since been understood would be called after .Melbourne's most famous daughter. The first instalment of the promise was fulfilled when the present building was erected and fitted at a co.-.t of JiSUOII. But the liberality of the policy which the present Ministry is showing to the university in so many other pressing directions has hitherto delayed the completion of the design, which includes a fine concert-hall, with stage platform, and capable of seating about 800 people.

Madame Melba, on learning: of the delay and its cause, lias decided to better her generous word anil inaugurate anew tho movement to raise the necessary. funds. She will sing at a concert matinee to be given iu Her .Majesty's Theatre, which lias been kindly lent by J. C. Williamson, Ltd., for tho purpose, and tho Governnienfwill add ill for XI to the proceeds of that concert and tho subscription-list up the amount of .£IOOO. The estimated cost of tho hall is about .£."000, and a strong committee is Wing formed to further the aim of tho Movement.

Madame Melba has shown a continuous interest in the Con.-orvatorimn. She established by a gift of .£SO the Students' Loan Fund, which has assisted many a student in temporary difficulty about iees. It was her gift which made possible tho acquisition of the complete set of normalpitch orchestra instruments, and her example, followed by .Mr. and Mrs. Kenncrly Humford, and the contribution of £140 by the Government, with smaller amounts by others interested, secured this great advantage for (he students and this excellent reform for the whole State. Then she, the greatest living singer, conferred a world-wide distinction 011 the Conservatorium and tho university of her native city by consenting to give instruction within its walls, and to prepare students to appear at tho annual concert as members of Madame Meiba's special singing class. She now crowns all other gifts by materialising for the Conservatorium the dream of a Melba Ilall.

What Does He Mean?. Friodrich Nietzsche, in liis book "Beyond Good and Evil," sets tlie possibility of "a super-German music, which does not fade, wither, and die away in view of the blue, sensuous sea and the splendour of Mediterranean skies, as all German music does—a super-European music that assorts itself even amid the tawn.v sunsets of (ho desert, whose soul is allied with the palmtree, can consort and prowl with great, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey." Further the German philosopher tries to imagine "a music whose rarest charm should consist in its complete divorce from Good and Dud—only that its surface might be ruffled, as it v.-cre, by a lon'ging as of a sailor for home, by variable gulden shadows and tender frailties—an Art which should see fleeing toward it, from afar off, the lines of a perishing moral world become welt-nigh incomprehensible, and which should 1m hospitable and profound enough to harbour such boated fugitives." Tolstoy, in "Lucerne," transmute a landscape impression into a musical impression when ho writes:—"Neither on the lake, nor on the mountains, nor in the skies, a single straight line, a single unmixed colour, a single point of repose —everywhere movement, irregularity, caprice, variety* an incessant interplay of .shaik'-i and lines, and in it all Ihe rejiesrfulnes.-, «iftn«ps. harmony, and inevitableness of Ueauty." Recent London Concerts. . Two distinguished inu-ical personages, Madame Carreno and Miselia lilman, appeared in a joint recital at the Queen's Hall, London, I lie other day, when (hoy made a great impression in Cesar Franek's .Souala in A major. The performance, the "Standard" critic stares, was "as convincing in its emotional power as if wa's skilful in its technical achievement." There was some line solo playing also on ihe part of bolh artists, whose concert will doubtless take rank as one of the most noteworthy of the season. Miss Katherino Goodson, another star pianist, gave, on the eve of her fourth comprehensive lour in America, a recital at the licchsteiu Hull last month. Amongst her music was Mozart's Sonata in A, Beethoven's Minuet in A flat, and MacDowell's "Sonata Tragic#," und her reception was enthusiastic. -Mr. Percy Grainger is also highly praised by the critics for his performance of Greig's Pianoforte Concerto in A minor with (he Queen's Hall Orchestra, under Sir Henry J. Wood's baton, last month.

One of tho features of the last-mention-ed concert was the production of two new works by the I'innish composer Sibelius. The first, a cauzoncHa for strings, described, is quite a remarkable liltle piece, ,md in its way as full of national atmosphere as the great tone-poem "Finlandia," by the same composer (already heard more than once in Sydney). The "Valse fiomantique." flic second of the new works, is. the "Standard" critic thinks, not so individual in ils attempt lo express the spirit rather than the letter of (he dance. "There is little else than rhythm, and the ihemes are of litlle interest. but the scoring hero and there is typical of the composer." There was a new work also by ColeridgeTaylor, Ihe composer of "Hiawatha," «l the London Choral Society's concert recently. This is "A Tale of Old .Japan," whicii was extremely well received. II is said that lie exhibits here much of (he spontaneity and genuine inspiration nf "Hiawatha." ami Ihe new music is written of as being "delicate and fragrant as the cherry blossoms of the land which iespired thj poem."