AN INTERESTING MUSICALE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 480, 14 June 1890, Page 5

AN INTERESTING MUSICALE.

MISS OTIE CHEW IN ENGLAND.

Of late, Australians have frequently referred in their newspapers to an infant phenomenon who hails from their midst and of whom they are justly proud. Some time ago an Aucklander wrote to Miss Otie Chew about the prodigy, and received the following information in return :—She (Miss Otie) was requested by letter to go on a certain evening to the house of an eminent London musician, who has manifested great interest in the young violinist, to meet her old friend Mrs Admiral Fairfax, Sir Wm. Robinson (lato Governor of Western Australia), Lady Thompson and other notables. She must take her violin, the very best music she had, and be prepared to play it in her very best style, because she would meet and be compared with a great rival on the occasion. So much more was stated concerning the said rival that Miss Otie desired her violin teacher to oblige by hearing her rehearse a couple of pieces and give needful suggestions. But why was she so anxious and particular ? She explained. He accompanied and criticised ; then bade her go and fear no rival of her own age. She went, and on entering the grand house was met by strains of the sweetest music from a splendid piano. “It must be MrL. himselt who is playing,” she thought, but no, on ascending the broad staircase, there was the host standing at the top of the stairs waiting to welcome her. “O, Mr L., who is that playing so beautifully ?” “Your rival, little Elsie Hall, who is less and younger than yourself.” “ And is she a violinist too?” “O, no ! it’s quite enough that she can perform on one instrument like that, for she is barely thirteen years of age. She has, however, been more favoured than you, having had the best teachers since she was five years old, and then she lias been in Germany for two years, her mother having brought her from Australia to Europe just as your mother brought you from New Zealand to England. But come in, you’re rather late, and she is eager to know you.” The two Australasian girls met, became friends, and discoursed music for each other. “ And O, didn’t she play sweetly and grandly !” the young Aucklander writes. “I never heard any professor do better. The two pieces I played are far more difficult than those I used to think so much of in Auckland, and the accompanimentsproportionatelymoredifficult, and if the little thing didn't go through them correctly atsight without any trouble !” The juvenile violinist, whose playing is reported to be already “ wonderfully improved,” was so lost in astonishment and admiration of the more youthful pianist, that she imagined nearly all the applause was meant for the tiny accompanist). Perhaps it was because she looked as if needing a little encouragement herself that Sir W. Robinson, himself a composer, called her aside to compliment her in terms that sounded like flattery. In particular did he urge her to stick toherfiddle. Therewereany number of good pianists, but very fewfirst-classfiddlists; so when she entered college she must on no account neglect that far superior and more difficultinstrumentforthepiano, or harmony, or any other study. Mrs Hall, mother of the tiny pianist, also praised the fiddling very much, and asked Miss Otie if she would agree to play solos and duets with her daughter in public. Probably she knew that little Elsie had played at the last reception of the Lady Mayoress, and that the papers had spoken very highly of the performance. If they two were to appear publicly, the one with her violin and the other with her piano, they would produce a sensation even in London, not alono on account of their juvenility or proficiency, but because they had both come from tho ends of the earth, and proved that some good thing could come from the colonies, as of old from Nazareth. Mrs Hall also stated that it would pay very well, but Miss Otie replied that she expected to enter college in a week or two ; that then she would not be allowed to play in public without a written permission, and that she preferred not to appear in public at all until she had finished there. Go on and prosper, little girls. Many of us colonials feel as proud of these two little musicians as many others feel proud of their noble breed of racehorses ! Advance Australasia !!