Lady Halle’s First Violin.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 461, 9 April 1890, Page 4

Lady Halle’s First Violin.

Lady Halle (says ‘ Woman’s World ’) is the most distinguished member of a large family of musicians. For a century and ahalf the name of Neruda—her ladyship’s maiden name was Wilhelmine Neruda—has been associated in Moravia with the violin, much as someof thefamiliesof Cremona were famed for its manufacture. Lady Halle’s father was organist at the cathedral of Brunn, where she was born forty-eight years ago. ‘lt was the delight of us children,’ Lady Halle relates, ‘to sit in the organ-loft listening to the music. As you know, in Catholic cathedrals it is the practice to sing the masses to an orchestral accompaniment. I remember that, babyasl was.ltook a special delight in hearing the violins, and when my father gave a little violin to an elder brother, I was cmite envious of his good fortune. How I longed to have a little violin myself ! At first my father would not let ray brother lend me the instrument, fearing I should use it as a toy. When he discovered that I could play it better than my brother he gave me another instrument. Shortly after we removed jfco Vienna, and then Jansa, who gave me whatever training I ever had, heard me play. Jansa—who, by the way, lived many years in England, but died in Vienna—was organising a concert, and nothing would satisfy him but that I should play, although I was but six years old, Jenny Lind, then at the height of her farce, sang at the concert, I played a conoerto from De Beriot, and from thatday to this, without any interval for training, or indeed with scarcely any interruption whatever, I have been playing continuously in public.’