MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 14

MUSIC

By

F.I.R.

Edna Thomas, singer of negro spirituals, proposes to make another trip to Australia and the Dominion.

The Hawera Competition Society’s festival will be held from August 20 to 24. Six hundred and fifty entries have been received.

The post of conductor to the Royal Choral Society, which has not been officially filled since the death of Sir Frederick Bridge, has now been given to the young English conductor, Dr. Malcolm Sargent.

Mr. Vladimir de Pachmann, who is nearing his SOth birthday (he was born at Odessa on July 27, 1848), gave a piano recital of Chopin’s works at the Albert Hall, London, recently, to an audience of neaidy 5,000.

Mr. Eric Bell, a talented young Aucklander, who has just returned after a concert tour of the Dominion as a pianist and accompanist with Miss

Dawn Assheton, English soprano, and Mr. Laszle Schwartz, Hungarian violinist. Before leaving New Zealand, Mr. Laszlo Schwartz, in a letter to The Sun, expressed his appreciation of the splendid service rendered as accompanist by Mr. Bell. * * * "There are many women now learning to take their place in orchestras,” said Sir Hugh Allen. Director of the Royal College of Music, London, commenting on the place of women in modern music. “Women have a great place in music, and, judging by the work they do, they have a great future.” Dante Ethel Smyth, herself a woman composer and conductor, has also great belief in women’s musical future. “But,” she says, “I think the ideal is an orchestra made up of both sexes. The women must have a good influence on the men because of their wonderful enthusiasm, discipline, punctuality, and reliability.”

“THE GOOSE GIRL” SCOTT GATTY’S COMIC OPERA AUCKLAND PERFORMANCE A pretty little musical play, seldom heard these days, will be staged at His Majesty’s Theatre on Wednesday and Thursday next, when Sir Alfred Scott Gatty’s comic opera, “The Goose Girl,” will be presented by the Patrician Operatic Society, a newly formed organisation which incorporates St. Patrick’s Cathedral Choir. “The Goose Girl” has all the elements of a successful light comic opera. The story concerns the beautiful Lady Di, who through the machinations of an evil witch is turned into a goose girl, but despite this social handicap she succeeds in winning the affection of the king, and of course both live happily ever after. Following the best mid-Victorian traditions, there is also a fairy queen to counteract the machinations of the wicked witch, which she does in several florid arias sung in the approved fairy queen style. On the least provocation she introduces a band of minor fairies, who gambol merrily on the sward as a further protection against the evil influence. The music is bright, and, due largely to the introduction of additional numbers, is of the kind commonly termed “catchy.” The company has been in constant rehearsal for several months, under the capable direction of Captain Redmond, and judging by the standard already attained, it should be responsible for a good performance. The box plan is at Lewis Eady, Ltd.