Philharmonic
Society’s Concert
This Society gave their second concert in the Town
Hall on Thursday evening. We do not call it a “grand concert” for the society
itself repudiates the adjective; but we may perhaps without offence
characterise the performance as very excellent, for such they really were. The society have appeared to act on the maxim that liberality is
the best economy. At any rate they went in largely for “the available talent of
the colony” and in other respects the arrangements appear to have been made
carefully, judiciously, and completely “regardless of expense”. Although the
night was dark, wet and sloppy out of doors, there was a very large attendance
– greater we think than on the Society’s opening night. It is understood that
the aim of the society is to raise a fund for the purchase of an organ for the
Town Hall, but if they persist in extending their popularity as they have done,
the hall itself will have to be enlarged.
We have said that the performances were very
excellent, but this must be understood of them as a whole. They were not so uniformly good as those of the opening night, yet in some
particulars they were even superior to them. This applies more particularly to
the instrumentalists. Their
performance of the overture and of Mendelssohn’s celebrated “wedding March” was
faultless. We do not remember having heard anything equal to the latter, as it
regards instrumentation, since the Opera Company last left the colony. But the
full choruses were the principal feature of the concert. “The entire strength
of the Company” as the playbills say, comprised 120 performers. Of that number
there were over 20 instrumentalists and fully that number of lady vocalists
multiplied by two. The skill and care required in training an orchestra are in
direct proportion to the musical strength, and in inverse proportions to the
musical attainments of its individual members. The committee are said to be
very careful to admit none but competent performers; but anyhow they have been
trained to move together in full chorus with the order and precision of an oganised troupe of the regulars at a grand review.
Mr E Spiller acted as conductor, Mr R.B. White, RAM., as leader and Mr James Shakespeare as pianist. The
society’s band was strengthened by the attendance of Messrs. J Hall, Chapman,
Schrader, F Heydecke, Howson,
Jarvis, Tilly Proctor, Betteridge and two or three
other instrumentalists. The principal vocalists were Miss E Winter, Mrs Mander, Miss Vaughan, Miss E Nimmo,
Messrs, Dyer, Smith, Hallack, C Lyons and G.T. Harris.
The choruses composed several of the best compositions
of Balfe, Weber, Gounod, and Auber.
The style of these great masters of the lyric stage is very dissimilar. Balfe’s choruses are startling and impetuous in their
rugged simplicity while those of the composer of “Der Freischutz”
are like the flight of an arrow. They appeal directly and irresistibly to our
higher perceptions of what is noble, great and true. Gounod delights in the
fascinations of complex modulations and has the rare skill of infusing a
strange mysterious charm into his compositions. Auber
revels deliciously in the elegancies of melodious combinations, and is often
the most charming when the listener is least able to analize
his own sensations. The full force of the orchestra told the decided effect in
the choruses from Balfe’s “Satanella;” but
the culminating point was reached in Weber’s celebrated Gipsy Chorus, from “ Preciosa,” which evoked an irresistible encore. Locke’s
weird music to “Macbeth” which formed the close of the first part was well
rendered although the vocalists occasionally were wanting in promptitude as
regards time. The songs and other lighter pieces which were interspersed up and down the programme were in
several instances vociferously applauded. The least effective was the double
quartets in the first part. The voices in these pieces were not so nicely tuned as they should have been. It would be
difficult to say which of the vocalists bored off the palm of excellence.
Perhaps they will all try again. The lovers of sweet sounds will be gald to hear them if they will oblige. The evening’s
entertainment was concluded by half-past
The Register,