COMEDY HARMONISTS AGAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 8, 18 August 1939, Page 12

COMEDY HARMONISTS AGAIN

New Zealand Tour In Two Months’ Time

OWARD the end of 1937, six gentlemen visited New Zealand. There is nothing extraordinary about that, of course. But they happened to be the Comedy Harmonists. Of their progress, one falls back on the good old "veni, vidi, vici." They are undoubtedly wonderful propagandists for music. The amateur musicians whose vocabularies on the subject were limited to "scat" and "bull-fiddle" lapped up the overture to the "Barber of Seville" without a murmur,

and. highbrows went to the lower levels at the delightful renderings of such treacly stuff as "Cheek to Cheek." Now for the news-the Comedy Harmonists are coming back. When they return to New Zealand in about two months’ time, theirs should indeed be a triumphant success. They will give several concerts while they are here, of which "The Listener" will announce details later on. The Comedy Harmonists are what Americans would call "bright boys." They give an eternal lie to the idea (which is sadly prevalent) that serious musicians are long-faced individuals with little or no sense of humour. For a little over a decade now these six Austrians have been singing for their supper like the conscientious child in the nursery rhyme. They've been singing for breakfast and dinner, too, and they’ve done it in every country in Europe except the Balkan States. We're frequently told about the long search to find matching pearls; but surely Harry Frommermann’s achievement in bringing together these voices so perfectly balanced is just as remarkable. They all get on together very well. But they make a point of each having his own room in hotels, and on boats they have separate cabins. They argue that they see enough of each other during working hours. The Comedy Harmonists made their first appearance in "Casanova" in Berlin. They were an. immediate success. After the first appearance in the German capital came visits

to Hamburg and Leipzig. They made records, They visited London and broadcast on numerous occasions from the B.B.C. They appeared in German, French, and English films. Wherever they have gone, people have been charmed with their singing; like the humorous record, it is "something new." They have amazing versatility. The high and the low-brow find a common denominator at their concerts. They have attracted everybody, from jitterbugs to Rubenstein and

Schneevoigt, who sat among the red hot mammy worshippers at one of their concerts in Australia a while back. They have sung in many different lands .under many different conditions. They once hit their high notes in a very low place; that was when they gave an impromptu concert for miners in a Calgoorlie mine, 1800 feet ‘below the surface! The boy someone heard whistling "Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring" as he bicycled down the street the other day in Palmerston North was on the right track. Most people can give a recognisable rendering of "The Chestnut Tree," but when they get back as far as Bach or Mozart, the original melody is not usually distinguishable from a Zulu war chant. That is where the Comedy Harmonists excel; they are equally at home with the old masters and the modern fakes. They can make the dithery emanations of Tin Pan Alley sound almost as good as Schubert. There is a suave, delightful humour which goes with their presentations; and for this, Herr Frommermann is largely responsible. He is the buffo of the group, and before the Harmonists came together he was an actor. Besides tickling the public’s risibilities, he arranges, with extraordinary cleverness, the music. The other Comedy Harmonists are Roman Cycowski, Hans Rexeis, Erich A. Collin, Fritz Kramer, and Rudolph Mayreder. You see their smiling faces above-soon you will be able to see them again in person. ~