A New Maori Song

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 47, 5 June 1931, Page 2

A New Maori Song

By

Alfred

Hill

O COMPOSE a Maori song which ‘retains sufficient of the Maori idiom-to appeal to the Maoris themselves and at the same time holds a compelling.interest for any average European: audience may be counted a real achievement in the musical world. With "Waiata-Poi," "WaiataMaori" and the sweet and haunting melodies of "Hinemoa" Alfred Hill demonstrated that he possessed the way, the will and the understanding tq, this end... In "H Moe B Tama BH Moe" (Sleep, Little Boy, Sleep) Mr’ Hill has featured his first Maori lullaby, and the song, which has already: been sung with great success over the air in Sydney,’ promises to show as good a tecord as "Waiata-Poi." Chappels are the publishers, and the advance copies are expected to. reach New Zeaalnd at an early date. The words of the song were written. by -Hori Makaire, a Wellington journalist. The author originally sent the verses to an Australian journal. A few weeks later, in the presence of a fellow journalist, he produced & "rejected" slip from the editor of that publication. The literary friend saved the poem from the waste-paper bask: and persuaded Makaire to send it else where. Asa result it was featured in another journal, and a copy eventually found its way to Alfred Hill, who lost no time in setting the words to music, describing the verses as the most appealing of the kind he had heard. -Reports suggest that. Hill’s enterprise is justified, ..