TWO CENTENNIALS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 150, 8 May 1942, Page 7

TWO CENTENNIALS

HIS coming week marks the. centennials of two famous composers, Massenet and Sullivan. On May 12, at 9.25 p.m. 2YA will give a programme of Massenet’s music. Jules Massenet (1842-1912) is sometimes known as the "Musician of Love." In the obituary riotice in the New York Tribune, Bessie Abbot, the American Opera singer, wrote of him, "He had a pretty trick of telling his fair companion that she suggested a melody and he would go to the piano and improvise some honey-sweet strains that really did suit the personality of the one so highly complimented." Some of Massenet’s better known stage works are Manon, produced in 1884; Thais, in 1894; and Herodias which in England was always called Salome. He also wrote a large number of orchestral compositions, suites, a piano concerto, some cantatas and oratorios, a good deal of incidental music to plays, and a couple of hundred songs. ° Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) whose centennial will be marked by the presentation of a special programme of his music from 2YA on Wednesday, May 13, at 8.13 p.m., is well known as a composer of both church music and comic opera. Richard Terry, the church musician; wrote ‘of him that he " emancipated himself from the duties of the organ loft, but to the end of his days he was hag-ridden by its traditions; chief amongst them the idea that the noblest aim of a musician must be religious music. Sullivan was\ temperamentally unable to write religious music, but his reverent habit of mind prevented his realising the fact." ,