A MUSICAL MECCA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 22, 21 October 1918, Page 8

A MUSICAL MECCA

WHAT VERBRUGGHEN HAS HADE SYDNEY

MR. JOHN PROUSE'S TRIBUTE,

Mr. and Mrs. John Prouse, who have just returned from a. visit to Sydney, speak most enthusiastically of the fine work that is being done in the domain of music in Australia by M. Verbrugghen and tho Government Conservatoire of Music at Sydney. This conservatoire is costing tho Government of New South Wales—originally a Labour Government—something like £12,000—and is well on the way to revolutionising music in Sydney. The conservatoire, of which M. Verbrugghen (a Belgian) is at the head, js bringing about a much higher artistic standard in music than has ever been known before in that centre by educating the musicians, to work for higher ideals than formerly, and tbo public is being taught to discriminate between the wheat and tares, between the meretricious and the intrinsically good. "People do not now need to go to London," said Mr. Prouse, "to.hear really good orchestral music. M. Verbrugghen's orchestra in Sydney /alls little short of the Queen's Hall performances, and to the musicallyinclined Sydney is now worth a visit if it is only to hear his orchestra and string quartet. Every musician in the State recognises in M. Verbrugghen one of the great conductors of the world, and the knowledge inspires them \o play with all the skill and fervour at their command. Verbrugghen's personality dominates them entirely, and the control he exerts is perfect. "Mrs. Prouse and I had the pleasure of hearing the orchestra play Tschaikovsky's Sixth (the Pathetic) Symphony, before booked-out houses, and for a third performance to he given after we left the plan was filled in an hour and a half.

"We were also delighted to hear the conservatorium choir and orchestra in a glorious Beethoven "Mass." I

Jiever imagined there was such compelling reverential beauty in Beethoven's vocal music until I heard this Mass sung twice. It was a revelation—an awakening ,to me. There were only a hundred voices in tho choir, a mediocre vocal quartet,' and an orchestra of seventy, but the ensemble was extraordinarily impressive. Wβ do things too hurriedly and with too little rehearsal out here, and the result is usually disappointing. How can it be otherwise? In Sydney this choir has been rehearsing and studying this Beethoven Mass for nino months, until they really know it, and are permeated with its spirit, as conveyed through the master mind of Verbrugghen. •

"Wo also heard the string quartet, brought out by Verbrugghen, of which he is the leading violin (a pupil for many years of the great Ysaye). The quartet consists of first and second violins, viola, and 'cello, and for sheer artistry wo have heard nothing, like it in New Zealand. One of the quartet was represented by a substitute, when we heard them, hut they were delightful performances, nevertheless. The second violin, Miss Jennie Cullen (who has been with Verbrugghen for fourteen years), 5s an unusually fine violinist, with a sonorous and deeply syinpathetio tone. Mrs, Prouse was so affected by a solo, played by Miss Cullen, which occurs in one of the orchestral interludes in the Beethoven Mass, that she made a point of meeting the lady, and telling her exactly the impression she had made, not only on her, ihut ou everyone in the audience.

• "It would," said Mr. Prouse, "be a fine thing if the quartet could bo induced to pay New Zealand a visit. There is an artistic eleganco and cultivated refinement about their performance which compels admiration."