MUSICAL TASTE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 417, 7 October 1876, Page 2

MUSICAL TASTE.

The following page from a recent work entitled “ Musical Recollections,” contains some valuable suggestions for our vocalists who desire to see music occupying its true position as a Fine Art. The work is by an old and intimate friend of Sir Michael Costa, and will therefore command some respect : — “ Whilst, however, in choral and instrumental effects, such excellence has been

attained, it is painful to have to state that the qualities of vocal principals, as solo singers are called, are a thing wholly of the past. The old race has passed away, it isto be feared, for ever, unless the rising members of the programme b • induced —we might say be driven—to resort to the same means which male their predecessors appear like giants in the presence of the present race of musical pigmies—patient study and application not only in the matter of vocal execution, but in that of theory and sightsinging. The present race of English public vocalists — and of foreign also—with but one or two rare and singular exceptions is like fruit, which might, sooner or later, have become ripe and luscious had it been permitted to hang until it was fit to be gathered, but which, having beeu plucked much too soon, is crude and sour, and never comes to perfection, for in public terms, singers both male and female, and especially the latter, now-a-days rush before the public ere their style is formed, their voices settled, or their education completed. As for learning the scales so as to distinguish each tone and half-tone as distinctly as if given out by the clarionet, the flute, or the oboe, as we have heard them, and as by marked instances it will be specified no such result we fear is again to be expected. Such scale passages are heard in perfection only on the rarest occasions, and even then are, unhappily, generally so little appreciated by the public, in spite of the musical progress of the times, that it lias come to be believed both by modern teachers and pupils to be an effect “ more honored in the breach than in the observance.” In their place and room a mischievous and miserable system of tremnlousness is substituted as a mere meretricious attempt at producing feeling, the only apt explanation of which is to be found in the words of the satirist —

“ And seizing on innocent little B flat. She shook itlikea terrier shaking a rat” All nature, feeling, sentiment, style, and method are thus discarded, whilst purity of tone is sacrificed for more sensational screaming ; a “ final close ” contrary to all rules of rhythm or of art, being substituted for the composer’s intention ; and a vulgar shout, as if from lungs of 40-horse steam engine power, adopted merely to “ split the ears of the groundlings,” and to obtain the demands of an uproarious encore, whether that equivocal compliment be intended to be acknowledged or not.” Auckland Evening Star.