MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 410, 19 July 1928, Page 16

MUSIC

(By

F.1.R.)

Debussy was the subject of a tenth anniversary memorial concert held, by the British Broadcasting Company lately. His music was a large part of the austere programme. * * * Maria Henkina. one of the leading artists with the Fuller-Gonsalez Grand Opera Company, coming to Auckland this month, converses in English with a charming accent which she will probably lose, for she is endeavouring to acquire perfection in the use of the English tongue. “I have learnt it from the grammar and little books for children.” she told an interviewer. “It is my desire to know your language thoroughly, so that I may be able to read your literature.” Mme. Henkina lives on a Spartan diet. “When I sing ‘Thais,’ ” she said, “I eat nothing at all all day. I must keep my figure for the dance. It would never do to show the people that I am plump. So in the morning I have only one glass, one tiny glass of orange juice, and at six o’clock at night I have a cup of coffee. Art is for the eye, not only for the ear. It is not nice to be large to play in opera. A fat Mimi, or Lucia —no, no!" Mme. Henkina is said to have a magnificent soprano voice, and the Australian critics were unanimous in their assertion that she is one of the finest opera singers heard there for some time.

Albert Coates made bis debut at the head of the personnel of the San Francisco Symphony orchestra recently in the summer orchestral concerts at San ■Matea and in San Francisco. Coates, who is of RussianKnglish parentage, has divided much of his career between Russia and England.

“Famous Musicians of a Wandering Race” is the title of an interesting compilation of the biographies of Jewish musicians by Gdal Saleski. * * * The Flonsalez Quartet is now embarking on its twenty-fifth annual tour, -which it will make a general farewell. ' Berlin wanted to hear Chaliapin, but the Staatsoper could not engage him because of an impresarios’ national agreement not to pay star guests more than 500 dollars a performance. So the clever Staatsoper management invited a whole Russian opera company, 100 strong, including Chaliapin, to visit its house. It will cost more than 500 dollars a show, but the rule will not be binding, points out “Musical Courier.”

So astounding are the talents of the young Russian boy pianist, Shura Cherkassky, who is to tour this country shortly, that many writers in America have expressed the opinion that he is a reincarnation of a former giant of the piano. He could play the piano well at seven years of age, and was appearing in public when he was nine. At eleven he had a repertoire of two hundred works comprising the great classics in pianoforte literature. To-day it numbers nearly four hundred. Theodore Stearns the -well known American critic wrote, “Theosophists might call this boy pianist the reincarnation of a Carl Tausig or a Franz Liszt, I call him the greatest child artist I ever met.” Another American critic reviewing his performance of Chopin’s “Funeral March” Sonata (B flat minor), said, “as the sonata unfolded under Shura Cherkassky’s hands, there came a revelation —an inexplicable manifestation of musical feeling and understanding that proved sensational. Utterly unlooked for was the breadth and grasp of spirit, the subtle contrasting, the melodic leading, equally unforseen the superb conception of the Scherzo and the Marche Funebre, the refusal by the youngster to acknow r ledge applause between movements. Can this boy, then, be the ruling exception, really combining at his years intuitive musical ability, splendid training, and an unspoiled nature? A discovered paragon of prodigies, if this be true. For Cherkassky undoubtedly rings sincere in his work. He effects no mannerisms, no acrobatics. He enters the stage for music, and not for byplay.