VIENNESE BOY SINGERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 May 1939, Page 2

VIENNESE BOY SINGERS

CONCERT NEXT FRIDAY. An artistic treat of a very unusual kind is promised Masterton musiclovers next Friday night when the renowned Vienna Mozart Boys’ Choir will give a concert in the Opera House. Among the many tributes to the artistry of this Choir is that of the "Manchester Guardian,” which said: “Those who heard this Choir of boys, aged from 10 to 12. must surely have gone away with enlarged conceptions of the musical possibilities of boys’ voices. Lucky enough to grow up and be trained in a city with Vienna’s unique musical traditions, they naturally sing much music that may be called native to the place; it ranges from Mozart through Schubert to Johann Strauss. But their programmes take a wider flight, beginning with music of another golden age, that of the Italian. Church School, with its Flemish and Spanish branches, culminating in Palestrina and the masterly music of the Spaniard J. L. de Victoria. The young singers from Vienna can, when they choose, emulate closely the clear, smooth tone of English Choir-boys’ singing at its best, but for the most part they produce a tone freer and reedier and more flexible in quality. The silken beauty of the pianissimo, the dramatic gusto, the rhythmic abandon of the singing, were astonishing; nor did the singers’ utmost vigour spoil the pure quality of the melodic lines. Dr Georg Gruber controlled the singing of the boys in masterly style throughout.” Plans for the Masterton concert will be opened at W. G. Perry’s on Tuesday morning.