THE CONCERT PLATFORM.

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1913, Page 45

THE CONCERT PLATFORM.

To the Editor. Sir, —Rightly or wrongly, I have always held the opinion, and shall continue to do so all my life, that the beauty of a song consists, not only in the melody, but also in the story it tells, consequently I have always wondered what species of conceit, or what species of idiocy, causes our colonial singers, when singing to a colonial audience, to do so in a foreign language, presumably Italian, but as much like the genuine article as the barking of a fox terrier after an unhappy cat. , I have not altered my mind in the least as to the necessity of the story being told in the song, but I have now come to the conclusion, that it is neither conceit nor idiocy that actuates our colonial performers in their choice of a language is cuteness. The ordinary 'wood and water Joey ' type of a musician can detect faulty enunciation when a song is sung in the mother tongue, and so as not to give him a chance of finding fault, our young people make vocal sounds of which neither they nor their audience have the least idea of the meaning. It often occurs to me what would the residents of the shores of the Mediterranean say, if they heard the murderous pronunciation of their language; but our singers when performing there, would be most careful to use only the Anglo-Saxon, which would be just as intelligible to our continental friends as th& colonial 'Hytalian' is to us.—l am, etc.,

A. C. Nottingham. Halswell, July 16.