DON COSSACK CHOIR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 185, 23 August 1937, Page 12

DON COSSACK CHOIR

FOLK SONGS A FEATUEE OF REPERTOIRE When the Don Oossack Choir, which is to be presented by Messrs J. and N. Tait at the Municipal Theatre on Fi'iday iicxt last appcared in New Zealand there Was much intci'est in the follc songs and tliese will forra a largo part of its repertoire. The folk songs are sung eitlier by a single Voice or by a chorus. In the latler case a siilgle voice leads off with the sUbject and thcn thc chorus takes it up. The har1 moliisaiion Of tliese tuues is traditional aud extremely origiual. The diil'erent voiCds1 of tho chorus approach each each other until they form a unison, or elso sbparate into chords. ltussian folk songs inay bo classified aa singing ganies, songs for special oceasions, strdet songs-, songs of the ' ' bourlake ' Or of the barge haulers and songs for a single voice of every kind and sort. feoine of these Eussian songs afe marked by masculine energy, by savago unrestrained vehemence, or again, by cairn majestic dignity. Others are graceful and, attractive and charm us by thdir careless gaiety. Many are stainped by a pxofound mclnncliOly; you feel the grief in tliem struggling to expand, tho resigned submissiOii to a cruel and rigorous fate. 8ome litive their origin in the clear untroubled pools of poetry. Others agaill with slow and stately measure, speak with Ihe voice of pomp and circumstance. The chorus, arranged in f a circle, plays the part of a narrator and cotilmeiitator, likc tlie cliorus in dramas ahd comedies of antiquity. Ln the niiddie of ilie circle are two oi' more peasalits of cither ,sex wliose business it is to repro&ent the charactcrs in thq story—

th§ coupie in love, the husband and "wife, the mother andt daughtef, the wicked stepmother, and so forth, each peasant liaving to dahfe dr aot wliile singing the scrap of dialogue allolted to him or hdf hs the case mfiy be. fcSofnetinies the chorus Sings continuously, in other singing games there ia a lea'der who recites thc tale Wliile the chorus merely repeats at tlie end of each strophe, of adds on its own aC1count an exclamfitory remark or some brief rcflcction. Just as niueli caro has becn given by tho chorus to tlie care of church music which, with folk-soug, has becn one of tho primary eloments in the constitutfhn of their modcrn music. As faf as that goes, the two elements are readily fused, oue iinds' for iustance, in a vfery large nuinbef Of national folk-songs, the form of tonality of Anoient Greek mhsic. The box plans will be opened at Fail's on Wednesday morning next at nine o'cloek. A queue will be formed from 8 a.m.