MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2354, 9 January 1915, Page 9

MUSIC.

fßz Treble CletJ The Cllbert-Sulllvan Company. The following tour has been definitely booked for the J. 0. Williamson, Ltd.„ Gilbert and Sullivan Comic Opera tour. The Auckland season terminates on Saturday, January 16, then "The Gondoliers" will be staged at New Plymouth on Monday, January 18; "The Gondoliers" and "The Mikado" will be presented to-playgoers of Wanganui on Tuesday and ' Wednesday, January 19 and 20; on Thursday and Friday, January 21 and 22, "The Gondoliers" will be staged at Palmerston North, and these two operas will be produced to theatregoers at Napier, on Saturday and Monday, January 23 and 25. On Tuesday, January-26, "The Mikado" will be staged at Masterton, and a ; season will be commenced at Wellington on Wednesday January 27. It will extend over 16 nights, during which "The Gondoliers " "The Yeomen of the Guard," "The Mikado," "H.M.S. Pinafore," "The Pirates of Penzance," and "lolanthe" will be staged. On Monday, February 13, the Southland tour will begin at Ohristchurch, and afterwards the company will viist Timaru, Dunedin, and' Invercargill. Altogether there are over 160 travelling members of the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Oomio Opera Company, moulding the following London artists:—Messrs. Edward M'Keown (tenor), Frank Wilson (baritone), Charles R,. Walenn Albert Kavanagh (comedian), 0. Villiere Arnold Frank Kintel (tenor), P. Gordon (baritone), L. Sigel (bass), Edward Wynee (tenor), Gladys Moncrieff, an Australian (soprano), Pearl Ladd (soprano), Katie May (litrht contralto), Lilian Fox (contralto), Maud Miles (soprano), Alf. Bennetto (soprano), and Ethel Morrison, a Wellington girl (contralto). The producer, Mr. Wethersby, was for years associated •witqh the London production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and Mr. H. Burton was for years musical director at tho,Savoy Theatre, London. Is It True? . It is rumoured that the Wellington Liedertafel intends to change its Germanio title. So far it has not been divulged what the new. name is to be. Perhaps we thall have a Wellington Glee Club', which will raise its song round the table. The Old Ballads. In a certain rural district in Virginia every year the negroes gather and act the story of one of the old ballads of the Scotch border. These negroes picked it up from white people who had it by word of mouth from their ancestors who came across the water with the song in their memories. The ballad has lived for centuries in this country, without being written down. Thousands of miles from the place of its origin it holds the attention of the members of an alien race, who knew nothing of the conditions of the people among whom the.story grew. This is a fair, example of the inherent interest in tho narrative of those old folksongs. In his sixteen years of research the late Professor Francis J. Child found that there were 305 old English and Scottish ballads. Professor Child noted incidentally that some of theße ballads—he found seventeen —were current in the United States. A year and a half ago Professor C. 'Alphonso Smith, of the University of Virginia, organised the Virginia Folk-Lore Society to find what of these old ballads are current in Virginia, and the United States Bureau of Education is londing its aid in starting similar societies elsewhero. So far, in Virginia, chiefly in the mountain counties fifty-six of the ballads have been discovered. In ..the hills of Virginia these old songs still pass from father to son and from mother to daughter, songs which for vigour of narrative, vividness of portraiture, simplicity of style, and fullness of content are not surpassed in the history of American or English Bong, -"World's Work."A Prima Donna's Abuse,' Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heinle, the German prima donna, who is well known in London, where she has not scorned to accept British gold and hospitality, sends the "Berliner Tageblatt" from New York an anti-English fetter couchod in such violent language that even the "Tageblatt" describes certain passages as unfit for publication. Far more diverting is Mme. SchumannHeink's statement that "in New York alone' '100,000 Irish are ready to embrace the first opportunity to go to Germany and help." The prima donna explains they are "unfortunately prevented from carrying out their purpose because the English board every ship." Meantime:— "I am singing and talking and doing everything I can to let people know the truth. The four Belgians who came over to create sentiment against Germany are doing all they can—but the moral slaps which they have gotl Manv Germans would like to go over, but the Consuls warn them not to, because the English warships stop every boat, and anybody who even looks halfGerman is captured. 0, these English, tneso . . ." (deleted by "Tageblatt''. censor). Mme. Schumann-Heink was reported in fho American Press two or three years ago as having renounced German citizenship and become a naturalised American in order to save "my sons from the clutches of the German military system" and preserve herself from persecution in her native land. She writes to the "Tageblatt" that now "my heart bleeds and tears roll down my cheeks for our glorious, gallant Germans and Austrians. May God be merciful to them and us." Seasonable greeting comes from Miss Mary Fitzroaurice Gill, inscribed on the 1 corner of her new patriotic song "The King's Soldiers." The song is conventional.both m regards words and raunio,' but both incorporate (n a spirited man.