MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1533, 31 August 1912, Page 9

MUSIC.

[By Tkkble Clef.] b World-Renowned Singer. Madame Kirkby Lunn, the famous English contralto, arrived in Melbourne from London on Monday week last, and as usual had to face the shots of a battery of eager pressmen. Says the "Age" t • "Of average height, well made, and with in English complexion, Mndamo Kirkb.v Lunn leaves the impression of being an nnsiioilt artist, as well as a phenomenally successful one. Sho lias no mannerisms. When spoken to yesterday at Menzies' Hotel, she had just come ofE the steamer. "I liavo not hiui time to get my hat off," sho remarked parenthetically. Xevertlic-Irs-s she had time to speak of the voyage nut and of tho work she hoped to do in Australia. It is her first visit to this country. She has sung in London, Paris, Xew York, Berlin, Leipzig, Brussels, DrcsJf 11, Buda Pesth—in fact in all the great cities where prima, donnas are expected to sing, with the singlo exception of Milan. The reason why sho has not appeared in the Italian city is explained by her manager. To get a singer of tho reputation ci Madame Lunn you have to hid high, and no Italian capital bids as high'as tlioso of France or Germany or England. It s-eems that Melbourne is joining tho ranks of cities that bid high. "I mil' determined to," said MadameKirkby Lunn, in response to a hope that -he will like her visit to Australia. She has a bright, keen wittwl way of talking, and a soft voice. The comparison is striking between the voice and the thing said. The one is velvety, and rather languorous;, the oth»r, swift, alert; and full of meaning. Madame Lunn knows nothing of Australia at first; hand—except what she taw of it' between Perth and Melbourne—but ,she states that all she has heard has mado her anxious !o sec for herself.. She confesses as to some nervousness ns to her reception in Melbourne. II is' a feeling that in spite of years of success never quite we.ire off. "If would be terrible," she says, "to disappoint people—especially when they e::peet a great deal from you. I have gone away from Covcnt Garden or the Paris Opera House feeling utterly wretched, because I was not sure that I had sung my best. Hut yes," she adds, in answer to a suggestion, "there have been limes when 1 kneyv I had done well. Those, o[ course, were glorious."" The Three Castles. • Miss F.ilewi Castles, the lyric soprano, lemaincd in Melbourne at'tra- tho .winding up of the Melba opera season. The following particulars about her two singing sisters and her brother arc from "The British Australasian":'— . ' , "Mr. George Castles, who returned' to London by the, Malwa, has gone to Berlin pa a visit to his sisters, the Misses imy anil Dolly Castles—Miss Amy at Berlin, jvliero she has five years'- engagement in grand opera, and Miss Lolly in Vienna. This month C.Tuly) Mr. Castles, iiccompan-1 ied by his sister, Miss Dolly, will sail for I America in July. Miss Castles has signed a weeks' contract with leading theatres . in New York. Mr. Castles recently finished (i Commonwealth tour with the 'Merry ■Widow' and ,thc 'Waltz Dream,' the performing rights of wliieh, he seemed' from J. C..Williamson, Ltd." , ;A Promising Concert. Air. Horace Hunt, of whom wo have heard too little of late, is to show Wellington his quality as an organist at tne recital ho has arranged' to givo at tho Town Hall 011 Thursday evening next. His contributions arc of a character to test tho budding organist, but are inclined to average up rather heavy for tho average concert-goer. He is to play Mendelssohn's Sixth Sonata, Bach's great A Minor, Dubois's "Fiat Lux," tho prelude to Act 111 of "Lohengrin" (V\ ner). Lemaro's "Romance in D Flat," and Widor's "Toccatc"'from hw- "Fifth Symphony." A welcome visitor from Auckland will bo Mr. Barry Coney, n robust baritone, with a good personality. Hiss Gertrude Hunt (who has been. studying under Mr. Spencer • Lorraine) will show cause in a triolet of pretty songs, and Miss May Donaldson, the clever and violinist, will appear once more. The Essence of Music. "Rhythm, taken in a general sense to include keeping in time, is the essence in music, in its simplest form as well as in the most skilfully elaborated fugues of the modern composers. To recall a tunc the rhythm must be revived first, and the melody will be easily recalled. .Completely to understand a musical, work eeas'es to be difficult when onee - rhythmical arrangement is mastered; and it is through rhythmical performance aiid rhythmical susceptibility that musical effects arc produced and perceived, l'rom these several data I conclude that the origin of must be sought in a rhylhmical impulse im man."—Richard Wallasclick, Mandolin Craze, The mandolin craze; which seemed tci have died out some years ago, because the' tendency was to devote the instrument solely to the most superficial kind of mu.-ie, is apparently gaining an entirely now kind of life through ilic study of better music and the improvement of different forms instrument itself. Tho plectrum principle in musical inrtruments is really very delightful when pioperly applied. The old mandolin orchestra of fifty to one hundred instruments used to raise a racket like a thousand tin cans tied to the tails oT a thousand dogs. Now, the intelligent mandolin performers are continually working, to form on.hestras devoted to'thc finer'interpretation of good music. One enterprising Wostein (inn is making instruments of seven different types corresponding to' the difici'cnt instrument': o£ the violin family tor v.hat they call the Mando orchestra. The Russian Ballalaika performers, who produced wonderfully artistic results, certainly set ■I now standard for the mandolin oichesI ti:as of America. I Notes. Mahler's "Eighth Symphony," which has come to be willed tho "Symphony ot a Thousand" owing to the enormous number of people required to give it adequate performance, is to bo taken 011 tour to London and Paris. Leoncavallo, the composer of "I Pagliacci," is writing a new opera to be entitled "Zingnra." Tho work is to bo produced at tho Loudon Hippodrome. The London vaudeville managers seem lo I'.o following 41 line of their own. Not satislied witii having Mascagni and Leoncavallo conduct their own works in the past season, thev also presented new and important ballots by Klgar and Ilumpcrdinck. This condition cf affair# is curious when considered in relation to tho fact that it is-exceedingly difficult to get English audienccs to go to regular grand opera performances.