MELBA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 9, 4 February 1909, Page 4

MELBA.

AND IIKH MKANING. "The word 'Melba' has come to mean | more than an artist possessed of perhaps the most perfect vocal organ of her dav," writes Mr. Filsou Young, in the Saturday lieview. "It has come to mean crowded- houses, doubled prices, long packed lines of motor-cars and carriages, rows upon rows of waiting footmen, (lowers, emotions, a golden superlluity of money, ami that touch of solemnity with which we crown our enthusiasms. In a word, Melba has become a convention; and in raising hei> to that level the Anglo-Saxon world has conferred upon her the most cherished patent at its dispo&ah TIIE LOVEUKST VOICE IN THE

WOKU). 'Everything tliiit Alelha moans could be seen ami studied iu the Albert Hall on a recent Saturday afternoon, when ninny thousands of people spent thousand's of pounds and thousands of hours of life In hear her sin# a few songs of farewell before her departure for an iibsen.ee of two years from our shores. '"The ugliest and most expensive building in London, the loveliest and most expensive voice in tho world; thousands of pounds, thousands of people, with the busy unemployed shivering in a gliding circle round the Albert Hall, and having, 110 doubt, their own thoughts on the matter —these make the available material for the consideration of what Melba means in her relation to life and music at this time.

IS ME LEA A MUSICIAN? "E have described Melba as an artist, whieh she undoubtedly is; hut I very much doubt whether she can be justly described as a musician in the highest sense of the word. To the investors of nine hundred out of every thousand pounds that was spent in hearing her last Saturday this statement will appear untrue; will feel it to be impertinent, more will consider it amassing! y ignorant, and not a few will regard it as a kind of faint blasphemy and in rather bad taste. Yet it is not impertinent to examine critically the title to so gigantic a reputation as Madam Melba has achieved. 1 am not ignorant on the subject of music; 1 have too much reverence for elements of truth and beauty in musical art to be capable oi blasphemy; and with all earnestness and -obriety 1 allinn that 1 hough Melba*s voice is the most beautiful fhat I in my day and generation have heard, her iulluence upou musical art aud taste in this country has been mi the whole an undesirable and mischievous iulluence.

TIIK SINGING AND THE SONG. "It seems ;( horribly ungrateful thing to write while I am still stirred with the memory of those most beautiful tones, so deliciously human, and yet so unearthly in their sweetness; and it seems a dangerously narrow pedantic view t u take of the artistic gift that has the magnificent power of evoking such huge human enthusiasms and alloctions. Rut if is necessary in the case of a singer who, successfully or otherwise, oilers her voice for gold to distinguish between the singer and the sin< r in'', the, sinking and the song. SHE TERRIBLE (GRAMOPHONE. <l fn describing some of the things for which the word 'Melba' stands T omitted one. and perhaps the. most important of all the things with which her name ?s associated in my mind—the gramophone. It is true that there are few singers or performers of any groat eminence who have not played or sung into the gramophone, and'in doing so have not (in my opinion) committed the sin of blasphemy: but 1 think none has done *o much to make that deadly instrument .popular as Melba has done, and that therefore she is the greatest singer." . s