MARIE THOMSON (Soprano)
RITA SHARPE 'S OCTET
HUMPERDINCK, although at one time a disciple of Wagner's, one who lived with him at Bayreuth and helped in the production of Parsifal, contrived none the less to keep his own strong individuality, and to make the happiest use of his own fresh ideas. In his young days he made rather a speciality of winning prizes ; one after another he gained all the chief scholarships open to German music students and, as more than one of these entails study abroad, he knew something of the music of Italy, France, and Spain at first hand.
A good part of his busy life was spent in teaching and he was also music critic for one of the leading German papers. But none of these activities interfered with his industry ns a composer, and though comparatively few of his big works are known to us now, he produced a .great volume of work which was successfully performed.
Hansel and- Gretel seems destined to bo the opera by which his fame will survive; an immediate success when it appeared in 1893, it soon made its way all over the world, and is still as popular as ever. Its fresh, innocent wholcsomeness was welcomed as a happy change from the tragic order of opera which was then enjoying such a vogue. It certainly forms a refreshing antidote to anything sombre or melancholy. The story, made by his sister from one of the best known and best loved of all children's tales, lends itself admirably to union with melodies of the folk song order, and these are used by Humperdinck in the most felicitous way, and presented with the most masterly orchestration. And the whole opera is so full of joyous melody that the compiler, of a selection from it has an easy task. Prominent, of course, is the broad melody of the Children's Evening Prayer, in which they ask for fourteen angels to guard them as they lie asleep in the woods. The stirring music of The Witch, in which make-believe terror and fun are cunningly blended, the singing and dancing of the children in the first act, with the irresistible merriment with which the music is instinct, and tho great Song of Thanksgiving when the witch is overcome and all her captives set free-all these fall on tho ear with a freshness which no repetition has any power to stale. Drink to me only with thine eyes
Three poor Mariners