The GLIO Site

PETERSFIELD MUSICAL FESTIVAL,

THIS YEAR'S ATTRACTIONS. 

ALTERATION IN HOURS ON LAST DAY. 

     It is our pleasant duty to again remind the inhabitants of Petersfield and the neighbourhood that the Musical Festival will be held as usual in the Drill Hall, Petersfield, the dates being 20th, 21st and 22nd inst. 

     The Children's Competitions will begin at 11.15 a.m. on Tuesday, the 20th, and will be judged by Dr. E. T. Sweeting, the choirmaster of Winchester College. An interesting point to note in connection with these competition is the entering, for the first, of a choir from the Petersfield Girls' School and other new choirs are Rake and Redhill.

     The afternoon concert programme contains a very special feature of interest in the performance, by Miss Alexander Maitland and Miss Margaret Deveke, of works for two pianos by Schumann and Bach respectively. These compositions are of very great beauty and when we consider how rarely an opportunity occurs for the general public to hear them we feel sure that they will prove a source of great attraction. Miss Viola Salvin, who is well-known to Petersfield audiences, will sing several folk songs as well as the Brahma Zigeunerheder. Mr. Percy Such has again most kindly consented to play a solo. The prizes and banners will be distributed by Mrs. LeRoy-Lewis.

     At the concert on the evening of Wednesday, the 21st, Miss Kathleen Chabôt, who is considered to be one of the most promising pianists of the day, will play Beethoven’s Concerto in conjunction with Dr. Allen’s orchestra, who will again be heartily welcomed by Petersfield. The combined choirs will sing, amongst other things, Mendelssohn’s unfinished opera ‟Loreley,” from which the ‟Vintage Song” in last year’s programme was taken. The soprano solo part will be sung by Miss Viola Salvin. A very beautiful item of the programme is Wesley’s Anthem, ‟Sing aloud with gladness,” to be sung by the choirs unaccompanied. The orchestra will play the ‟Siegfried Idyll” (Wagner), and the Scherzo and Nocturne from Mendelssohn’s ‟Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It will thus be seen that our Hampshire festival is joining with the rest of the musical world in celebrating the centenary of the birth of Mendelssohn. The prizes on this night will be presented to the winning choirs by Lady Wyndham.

     The Thursday concert will begin at 8.30 and will open with the distribution of prizes by Lady Clarke Jervoise. Mr. Francis Harford who is to sing and who has not been at the festital for three years may be sure of a hearty welcome, and it is a great pleasure to be able to announce that, amongst other things, he will sing Sir Charles Stanford’s ‟Songs of the Sea.” Mozart’s beautiful ‟Requiem” one of the chief features of the last Musical Festival at Leeds, will be performed by the combined choirs—a proof in itself of the enormous strides they have made in musical proficiency since the inauguration of the Petersfield Festival in 1901. The solo quartets in the ‟Requiem” will be sung by Miss Viola Salvin, Miss Sara Silvers, Mr. Charles Child, and Mr. Francis Harford, and the two latter will also sing the tenor and bass solos in another choral item, Bach’s Cantata ‟Thou Guide of Israel.”

     The wind players will again be supplied by the London Symphony Orchestra, and this, with the presence of Dr. Allen as conductor on both nights, will ensure a brilliant success.

     For the competitions on the 21st and 22nd it is a matter for sincere congratulation to the choirs that they should have the immense benefit of being judged by Mr. W. H. Hadow, of Oxford, who is well-known to be one of the ablest musical critics in this country.

     The competitions on Wednesday, the 21st, will begin at 11 o’clock, and it is satisfactory to note the entry of a new choir (Hambledon), and the return, after an absence of some years, of Langrish and a male voice choir from Privett.