MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 506, 8 November 1928, Page 14

MUSIC

(By

F.I.R.

Mr. John Prouse will sing the baritone solos in “Elijah" at Palmerston North early in December. ... Miss Naomi Whalley will be the soprano soloist in the “Rebel Maid,” to be performed by the New Plymouth Choral Society this month. * * * Mr. Claude Tanner, the Wellington ’celloißt, who has been in England for the last four years, will arrive in Wellington on November 20. • • * It is understood that Mr. Arthur Jordan, the well-known English tenor, will visit New Zealand next year. At present he is touring South Africa.

'C'VEN although there are some who do not profess great admiration for “Hinemoa” as a cantata, there will be very few who will not join in congratulating the Auckland Choral Society on the manner of its presentation last week or the spirit of enterprise shown by the society in giving subscribers an all-Maori programme. Mention must also be made of the excellent stage decorations which served to conceal the somewhat uninspiring background of the Town Hall stage and thus give the work an appropriate setthing. It is only enterprise of this sort, both in programme selection and stage decoration, that is going to give a much needed impetus to Auckland’s musical life, and make our musical entertainments really attractive.

Performances of Wagner’s “Nibelungenring” uncut are to be given at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, from January 14 to 22. A performance of “Traviata,” with Gigli. Muzio, Stracciari and Conductor Tullio Serafln opened the Rio Janeiro opera season recently. * * * Edinburgh's Paterson orchestral concerts will be conducted next season by Albert Coates, Vladimir Golschniann, of Paris, and Albert Van Raalte, of Amsterdam. Twelve programmes make up the series. • * * Its stage and equipment having been thoroughly modernised last year, the Royal Opera in Rome is to have changes made now in its outside appearance, seating arrangements and facilities for the reception of automobiles and audience. * * * Novelties in the current Dresden opera season will be Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” Wolf - Ferrari's “Sly,” Schubert’s “Der Hausliche Krieg," and. as a world premiere, “The Snow Bird” of the American composer, Theodore Stearns. * * m The following will appear as principals in the performance by the Royal Wellington Choral Union of “The Messiah,” on December 15:— Soprano, Miss Christina Ormiston, of Auckland; contralto. Miss Mina Caldow, of Auckland: tenor, Mr. Herbert Carter, of Wanganui; baritone, Mr. William Watters, of Palmerston North. * * * Twenty thousand persons more than last year attended the concerts of the Hollywood Bowl (America) this summer. Schumann - Heink, with Bernardino Molinari, Percy Grainger’s wedding, and the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet drew the biggest houses. Expenses may run a £I,OOO over receipts.

WORLD'S MUSIC Dr. Strauss Thinks It Has Reached Zenith FEARS FOR FUTURE Music, Dr. Richard Strauss fears, has passed its zenith. The Austro - German composer of “Rosenkavalier” and “Salome,” of symphonic poems and countless lieder, is not at all hopeful about the future of musical composition.

“The musical material has become exhausted in the course of centuries,” he thinks. “The

great classical masters have not left much for the modernist to do. Every art moves in curves. It improves until the highest point is reached, then becomes decadent. I fear music has passed its zenith.” Every time that

Strauss conducts one of his works he experiences the sensation of wondering how he could write as he did. “Not that I regret what I have written. On the contrary, I am satisfied. I have tried at every stage of my musical career to work with the utmost care and to give the best there was in me. But I know that I could not write a ‘Rosenkavalier’ or a ‘Salome’ to-day as I wrote them years ago. I have undergone a metamorphosis, that’s all.” Strauss does not recall just how he came to be a composer. WROTE MUSIC AT SIX “All that 1 remember is that I began to write music at the age of six. Until my 16th year my father, himself a professor of music in Munich, confined my musical education to the great classics, especially to Mozart and Beethoven. My love and veneration for Mozart, increases even to-day. Only much later did I become acquainted with the works of Wagner, Berlioz and Liszt, all three of whom have had a decided influence upon my musical career. In fact, my earlier orchestra compositions connect directly on to Liszt’s symphonic poems. lam very sorry to say, however, that I never met Wagner or Liszt personally. “The greatest single factor in my life, however, was Hans von Bulow. He called me to the opera at Meiningen in 1885 as second conductor, and to him I owe what I know about interpretation and conducting. Even today, when I conduct Beethoven, I have Bulow's interpretation in mind,”

• the other cheek, the British Broadcasting Company will help Sir Thomas Beecham form London’s first permanent symphony orchestra next season. Sir Tom has been acrid on the subject of radio,” states the “San Francisco Chronicle.”