MUSIC
A Beautiful Voice
THE▪ blind violinist, the pianist who has lost an arm, the crippled singer—all place the critic in an embarrassing position. He feels that it is wonderful that they should perform as well as they do, and refrains from remarking upon their shortcomings out of kind- ness. Miss Marjorie Lawrence, who sang at the B.B.C. Symphony concert last week and again at the Albert Hall concert on Sunday afternoon, puts one in no such quandary, for all that, a victim of infantile paralysis, she sings from an invalid chair. Her voice is magnificent and of an exceptional type. For it has the range of a dramatic soprano with the quality from top to bottom of a mezzo- soprano ' • even her high notes have the hill, dark tone. It is as if a violin could take on the velvety quality of the viola without losing its power and range. It is, of course, tragic that a singer so exceptionally equipped for the great operatic roles—and especially those of Isolde and Brfinnhilde—should be immobilised just at the time when her voice is at its best. But her disability has obviously not affected her singing, for her voice is easily capable of filling the Albert Hall with its ample tone. As to style, that is another story. Miss Lawrence certainly failed to arouse interest in a rather dull aria from Handel's Belshazzar by any special sense of phrasing. She was more successful with the more obviously dramatic air (and what a splendid piece of music it is!) from Gluck's Akeste. In the dosing scene from Goner- diimmerung again the sheer fullness and beauty of her tone were so impressive that one almost failed to notice the lack of expressive- ness in matters of detail. The courageous war-cry was splendid ; but the tragic desolation was not there. Nor did the scene from Strauss's Salome bring any sense of shame and horror to the mind. This was prefaced, by the way, with the "Dance of the Seven Veils," meticulously played for what it is worth as music under Sir Adrian Boult's direction, and so revealed in all its horrid little nakedness as about the worst piece of music written by a reputable composer in the present century. Oh ! those bogus Oriental clinkum-clankums that are pu: aside after a few bars in favour of a trivial and very inferior Viennese waltz! Sir Adrian was, to his credit, more at home in Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, of which he secured a most beautiful performance. DYNELEY HUSSEY.
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