MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 362, 24 May 1928, Page 14

MUSIC

(By

Mr. W. T. Foster, M.A., B.Lltt.. headm.ister of the Napier Boys’ High School, has been appointed musical director of the Napier Operatic Society. Mr. Foster is an old Hawera boy.

Advice has been received by Mr. E. F. B. Waters that one of the exhibitions offered by the Associated Board of the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music, London, has been awarded to a young Aucklander, Miss Llspeth Jean Clarkson. JJer success is specially meritorious in view of the fact that she was, at the date of the examination, nearly two years under the age limit imposed, and that this was her first experience of an examination in playing, as she started with the Advance Grade, an examination for which a high standard is demanded. She has won the only exhibition awarded in the Auckland district, and has since qualified by theoretical examination to sit for the highest practical diploma conferable by the Associated Board in this country, the Licentiate. * • * The programme for the Royal Male Choir’s concert on May 31 will include the following items:—Cantata. ’'Castilla”; "O Breath of Music”; “When for the Night’s Repose”; “Gondolier’s Serenade”; “When Evening’s Twilight”; and “Strike the Lyre,” to be sung by the choir; organ solos by Mr. Edgar Randal, “Menuet and Trio” (Wolstenholme), and “Lullaby" (Lemare); songs and arias by Mr. Hubert Carter, "Air de Jean,” “Heavenly Aida,” "D’une Prison,” “L’heure Exquise," “La Partida," “Love's Secret," “I am Fate”; du£t by Miss Phyllis Hazell and Mr. Frank Sutherland, "Scene from ‘Samson and Delilah’ ’’; songs by Miss Phyllis Hazell, • Habanera” and "Bridal Song.” The choir will also sing three sea shanties, ■Shenandoah," “Billy Boy” and “Bound tor the Rio Grande.” On paper this would appear to be one of the finest programmes the Royal Male Choir has had for many years. * * , Moiseiwitsch, the world-famous pianist, will make his re-appearance before a New Zealand audience at the Town Hall, Wellington, this evening, when a specially selected programme of classical and modern compositions will be played. Moiseiwitsch attracted very large audiences in all parts of the world, and is among the most popular concert artists who have visited New Zealand in the past decade. Nearly five years have elapsed since he began his last Australian and New Zealand season, when 10 recitals were given. At them he played 128 different compositions. The pianist is constantly enlarging his repertoire, chiefly by the addition of modern works, and his programmes are as attractive as they are varied. A North Island provincial tour will be made before the virtuoso proceeds to Auckland on June 19. * * * Mischa Levitzki, the young pianist who has so quickly made himself an international reputation, and who is to tour New Zealand in 1930, is at present one of the most popular figures in London musical circles, Levitzki is one of the most natural and unassuming musicianly “stars.” His chief delight at present is the prospect of soon seeing his American home again. Levitzki has played the pianoforte in most countries of the world, including the Far East, and he finds it Interesting to compare notes

of various audiences. In Hong-Kong and Shanghai he played to audiences of which less than 10 per cent, were native Chinese; in Japan, on the other hand, over 90 per cent, of his audience were natives, keenly interested in Western culture, though as yet they havo produced few executants of Western music. • * . 'Signorina Olga Poletti, who added \’ivacity and charm to genuine musical feeling in her interpretation of the roles of Violetta and Gilda in the Fuiler-Gonsalez operas this week,” says a Sydney paper, has already gained considerable experience on the lyric stage in her own country and in. South America. The youthful soprano, hailing from Leghorn, on the shores of the Mediterranean, received her musical training in Florence, but, recognising that a singer must always be a student, she affirms that her chief education has been gained in her actual experience on the stage. It was when she first sang in Leghorn that she met Mascagni, who was present in the audience, and who, at the end of the concert, offered her his congratulations. The composer later heard her sing privately in several operas and acted as her accompanist on these occasions, for incidentally he is an excellent pianist. Signora Poletti's operatic debut was made at Como in Catalini's “Lorelei,” a work of whose graceful qualities she speaks in high terms. Since then, leading roles have fallen to her lot in continuous engagements in Italy, and recently she sang with success in opera in South America, where another of the principals, by the way, was Signorina Scavizzi, who was here with the last William-son-Melba Company.