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PUBLISHED
600 PIECES
Composer Who
is Not Paiid:
SEEKING CHOIR:
Dom. S. -orehio, a composer who has
published. 600 pieces, but has not re
ceived -a penny for his work, - left
Port :Adelaide in the Westralia this.
afternobn.. -
A emall clergyman, he may have been
the original of G. KI. Chesterton's "Father
Brown" stories, with his black hat and
his modest voice.
Like Father Brown, he has an inter
national reputation. His masses, IUmns,
songs. and marches are copyrighted in
DOM. S. MORENO Help
DOM. S. MORENO
Australia, B3ritain, Spain, Italy, Germany,
and the United States of America.
He lives in the great Benedictine monas
tery of New Norcia, S2 miles north-east
oi Perth, Western Austra!ia, and he is
travelling to Sydney to organise a male
choir for St. Patrick's Church. He will
also publish a collection of 50 hymns, old
words set to new music, for Catholic
children.
In the past 10 years he has published
600 pieces, mainly in Italy. His best
known is his "Mass Ntmber Seven," which
is bsung in Britain and America.
Under .the rules of , his order,
he is boriid to poverty.
All that his compositions earn is tihe
property of the monastery.
"I have no more right to the money
than has the lay brother working our
flourmill at New Norcia," he said today.
STARTED AT 10
Dom. Moreno's first composition was
published when he was a 10-year-old
schoolboy in Spain. It was a march for
a military band, and when he revisited
Spain after an absence of 17 years he
again heard it played.
He studied composition in Spain, Italy,
and Germany, and withheld his works
from publication for many years, while
he revised and polished them. As a
churchman he specia!ised in polyphonic
music, and as a member of the Benedic
tine community he devoted eight hours
of his life to it every day. He has hlis
studio in the monastery, where .all his
leisure hours are spent.
Dom. Moreno is a pianist and organist
as well as a-composer. le said that alil
his relatirve were musical, anid that he
was the only one in his family who had
no singing voice. Australian voices were
easy to train, and were pleasing to hear,
particularly the women's voices.
A fortnight ago Dom. Moreno published
in Perth a set of Australian songs, based
on the poems in "Round the Boree Log."
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