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MUSIC NOTES
(By "Fidelio.")
Features of this afternoon's pro-
gramme at the Kylie Club's meeting
are piano solos by Nora Coalstad (in-
cluding Beethoven's 'Eroica" Varia-
tions and a Bach-Busoni Toccata in
three movements—Prelude, Inter-
mezzo and Fugue); a group of
Brahms songs by Marcia Hodges, to-
gether with Franck's "La Proces-
sion"; and songs by Schumann,
Moussorgsky, Vaughan Williams and
Peter Warlock, sung by William
Elverson.
The ABC Opera Company (Con-
cert Versions) faces a severe test
this evening, when for the first time
it attempts Mozart. It will have in
advance the good wishes, at all
events, of those who are all for en-
couraging it to leave the well-worn
round of a few popular successes.
The work is "Don Giovanni," the
ancient story of the libertine who
is at last brought to book when the
statue of a man he has slain ac-
cepts his flippant invitation to sup-
per, interrupts a cheerful party, and
drags the unrepentant Don down to
hell.
"Critics have been perplexed to
exhaustion by the question whether
'Don Giovanni' is or is not a comic
opera," writes a modem English
critic—W. J. Turner—who is not
perplexed. Declaring that in Moz-
art we have an exact musical paral-
lel to Shakespeare, Mr Turner tells
us that in "Don Giovanni" Mozart
"transcends not only the academic
formal classifications but also the
conventional categories of good and
evil, and blends the tragic and the
comic into a unity which is not to
be dissolved." After further inter-
esting discussion of the issue, in the
course of which he reminds us that
we have the librettist's own state-
ment that Mozart wished to treat
the subject seriously, Mr Turner con-
cludes: " 'Don Giovanni,' I main-
tain, is an intensely serious opera
in which the tragic and the comic
are inextricably blended with such
mastery and truth that the effect is
unutterably grand."
The principals in tonight's per-
formance at the Winthrop Hall are
as follows: Don Giovanni, Arnold
Matters; Donna Anna, Joyce Ross;
Donna Elvira, Doris Horrigan; Zer-
lina, Lorna McKean; Don Ottavio,
Frederick Williamson; Leporello,
Stanley Clarkson; Masetto, Eric
Mothershaw: the Commandant, Har-
old Neate.
One eminent conductor speaking
of the work of another is certain
to hold the interest of any music
loving listener or reader. In this
case there is additional interest in
the passage about to be quoted from
a foreword written by Dr Malcolm
Sargent for a new book on the his-
tory of London's Queen's Hall, des-
troyed in an air raid in 1941. It is
sometimes said that only an Eng-
lish conductor can really get to the
heart of Elgar's music. Hear Dr
Sargent: "Of impressions at con-
certs [in Queen's Hall] there are so
many that I dare not begin to probe
into my memory. But perhaps the
most lasting of all was hearing Tos-
canini perform Elgar's 'Enigma' Var-
iations with the New York Philhar-
monic Orchestra. I had known the
work intimately from the scone since
I was 15 and bad been taken care-
fully through it by my kindest of
friends, Elgar himself; but the per-
formance by Toscanini was so over-
whelming that at its end I was com-
pletely overcome and fled from the
building. A kind hostess, left with
a supper party of 13, waited my ar-
rival with justified impatience. It
was weeks before I dared explain to
her that I had walked the Embank-
ment until 4 in the morning."
As it is not long since our music
lovers were invited, by implication at
least, to give their minds to the
mystery of juvenile musical prodi-
gies they may find an interest in
the story (related in the American
"Newsweek") of 13-year-old Phil-
lippa Duke Schuyler, daughter of a
negro father and a white woman. We
are told, among other amazing
things, that this child wrote, at four
years of age, a poem called "A Baby
on Death" and had learnt to play
the piano and compose. Now her
compositions total some 200 (includ-
ing a "Manhattan Nocturne," scored
for an orchestra of 100).
Among her earlier efforts was a
"Cockroach Ballet," which caused
some consternation at the convent
where she was a student. She was
asked why she had not written about
angels instead of insects. "But, dear
Mother," said Philippa, "I've never
seen an angel and I've seen many
cockroaches."
Philippa's mother maintains that
her accomplishments are entirely due
to the fact that she has been reared
on a diet of raw food ever since
birth—including raw meat, fish and
vegetables.
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