Concerts Barred

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 536, 13 December 1928, Page 14

Concerts Barred

MR. EDGAR WALLACE EXPLAINS , BORE HIM TO DEATH “I would walk a mile to hear Paul Robeson sing ‘Ol’ Man River,’ or Marie Burke telling me why she cannot help loving that man of hers,” states Mr. Edgar Wallace. “I can sit in a trance while a military band plays the Sullivan operas, or the ‘Soldiers’ Chorus,’ or Tchaikovsky’s ‘lSl2,’ or the overture to ‘Lohengrin,’ because I know that music and love it. But I never go to concerts, because they play things which are unknown to me, and which, in consequence, bore me to death. “I think there must be thousands of people like me; thousands who could appreciate what an orchestra is doing if they only knew what the orchestra was trying to do. “If I could only detect the clarinet playing B sharp when it ought to be playing F natural! But I can’t. The trouble with me is that when a Wrong note is played I think it is part of the artfulness of the composer, and I am inclined to scandalise my neighbours by vigorous applause^ “And yet I can sit for hours listening to Fritz Kreisler and know enough about music to realise that he was playing ‘God Save the King’ in the wrong key at a Press Club dinner he attended. “It is true he was playing it on the piano, which is not his best medium. But I knew he was playing it too high for me to sing. I am one of the few people who have heard Kreisler play the piano at all; which, in itself, gives me a unique position in the world of musical critics. “But I have never heard Paderewski play the fiddle. The next time I meet that great Pole I am going to ask him to make an attempt as a personal favour.”

John Brownlee Marries The Australian colony in Paris was most interested in the wedding of John Brownlee, the Australian baritone who recently toured Australia with the Wiliiamson-Melba Grand Opera Company, to the Contessa Carla di Faletto. The civil ceremony was held on November 2S. and a double religious ceremony the next day. The first was held at. fche Church of Saint Pierre de Chaillot, the bride being a Roman Catholic, and the second, a Protestant service, at the American Cathedral. The Contessa Carla di Faletto is an orphan, and is 27 years of age. She belongs to a very old Turin family and lives in Paris, but has travelled extensively. She is sft Bin. high, slim and graceful, with jet black hair, blue eyes, straight nose and oval features. She dresses elegantly and is a strikingly beautiful woman. Her wedding dress was of white crepe satine, with an old Venetian veil. The best man was Captain Gordon Brownlee, the bridegroom’s brother, who was on holiday in Paris from Burma.

Your breath will not be taken -away by the price of that record de luxe, the sextet from “Lammermoor,” and the quartet from “Rigoletto,” seeing who the singers are. They were probably expensive; or, what is the same thing, their royalties are fixed at a high figure. The point is that their united efforts, vividly and faithfully realised by the electrical process, have achieved a superb rendering of these familiar ensembles.