WOBBLING SOLOISTS
Sir,-I’ve listened to many broadcasts of locally performed oratorios and cantatas. The choruses were sometimes well sung, but all broadcasts were marred by the wobbling soloists, Forty years ago wobble was held to be (what it is) unworthy of a musician; the wobbler was despised and ridiculed. Now, all the oratorio soloists wobble incessantly and unconsciously; a quartet of them in (say) "Since by Man came Death" is just intolerable to anyone with an ear. Why, then, need our Choral Societies pay away good money at every concert to encourage intolerable soloists? Why can’t they try the experiment of having the oratorio solos sung by all their singers of the required kind? English cathedral choirs have long been accustomed to allot Handel airs to all the boys, with ‘telling effect. Those who heard Dr, Bradshaw’s trumpet-toned boys sing Handel's "Let the bright Seraphim" could never again endure hearing that rapturously brilliant air taken by, one solitary, wobbling, timeless, self-satisfied female. How much better would "He shall feed His flock" sound, if its gentle rises and falls were sung by 40 or 50 contraltos, all under the direct control and sway of -a musicianly conductor, than wobbled ad lib. by an irreverent woman such as would have provoked profanity in several languages from the great Handel
himself! _
F. K.
TUCKER
(Abridged.-Ed. ) (Gisborne),
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 5
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223WOBBLING SOLOISTS New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 5
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