MR ROBSON’S RECITALS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2747, 12 January 1882, Page 2

MR ROBSON’S RECITALS.

Mr Robson proved to a Tiinaru audience last night that the reports that had preceded him of his great powers as an entertainer had not been in the slightest degree exaggerated. It would be difficult to imagine a reciter giving a more perfect representation of dramatic scenes between two or more personages. Mr Robson is gifted with a remarkable flexibility of voice, and this, together with great power of facial expression, enables him to carry bis hearers’ mind from one character to : another’ , with perfeet clearness, even when three or four are introduced. His power of expressing the emotions appropriate to the several characters in the different stages of each scene presented is very great, and if liis hearers are in the least degree sympathetic they cannot fail to be carried away by the tone and gesture of the reciter, as much as by a completely appointed dramatic representation., Mr Robson’s Shakespearan recitations furnish a ‘ genuine treat. In lighter sketches he is no less successful in exciting amusement, than in exciting graver feelings by his rendering of graver subjects. His versatility is wonderful, but if we wonder at Mr Robson’s power as a reciter, an equal wonder must be felt at his curious skill as a musician. He last night sang a celebrated, cavatina, as sufag by Patti, which ranges up to D in alt., and in response to an encore he gave “ Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye,” with all the flourishes that world-renowned primas would embellish it with. A solo on the clarionette, repeated in response to an encore, showed Mr Robson in another favorable light as an entertainer. M. Lorenz, an accomplished pianist, accompanies Mr Robson, and a few numbers on the programme are assigned to him. , His skill as an executant is undeniably great, and some passages be renders delightfully, but bis playing as a whole is marred by a fondness for banging the instrument in a way that suggests an intention to smash it rather than draw music from it. Contrasts—lights and shades—are valuable in music, but the shades should still bo musical, not mere noises, still less such horrid noises as a whole piano in vibration produces. This aside, the entertainment of last evening must be pronounced an intellectual treat. It will be repeated this evening billy; with a changed programme. '