1452 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



so it would seem that the tendency of would-be patrons of art in the direction just 

 indicated will have the result of confining local effort to the mere imitation of Old 

 World models to the neglect of the true aims of art. A distinctively Australian school 

 of art can never hope to form itself in the face of such constant discouragement. One 

 of the best signs for our artistic future is the fact that the local societies make a laud- 

 able effort to withstand this undesirable tendency, and even at the risk of some temporary 

 sacrifice, to cultivate their vocation in an honourable spirit of independence. 



The Australian is music-loving, and has been so from the time the first settlers 

 pitched their tents and built their huts. True, the general musical taste has not reached 

 any high standard, but the spirit of the love of song is in the people, and every year, 

 as time goes by, gives signs of a gentle but genuine growth of that keen appreciation 

 of the higher graces of music which surely developes into fervour and passion. In the 

 bush, now as of old, the fiddle and the concertina have their honoured places, and 

 many a night is made merry by happy-hearted singing, while in the centres of popula- 

 tion, and especially in the cities and prosperous towns, the pianoforte holds sway to an 

 extraordinary extent, almost every second house rejoicing in the possession of a good 

 or bad instrument. Musical societies are as " plentiful as blackberries," the late Mr. 

 William Cordner, of Sydney, a sound and enthusiastic musician, who arrived in 1854, 

 being the father of these associations. All the cities and not a few of the towns 

 of Australia and New Zealand have their flourishing amateur musical societies, and the 

 example of Melbourne in establishing liedertafels for male voices only has been success- 

 fully followed by Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. Some of the capitals have four or 

 five societies. Sydney, for instance, has two liedertafel-s, several choral societies and one 

 philharmonic society, the aim of the latter being the production of oratorios and other 

 great works. The Sydney Philharmonic Society, which, under Signer Roberto Hazon as 

 conductor, has attained the first position in the Colonies, has a chorus of five hundred 

 voices and an excellent amateur orchestra. There are in the Colonies hundreds of fine voices, 

 hundreds of naturally-talented players, and with good examples such as the visits of great 

 artists afford, and patient study, cultivation and development in the right direction are rapidly 

 doing their work. The soprano voice is the best in the colonies, and the baritone comes 

 next. Tenors of anything like quality are very rare, and the same remark applies to the 

 contralto. Of basses, with limited range, there is an abundance. It cannot be said that 

 Australia has yet given the world any great musical work. A recent visitor, Mr. Fred. 

 Cowen, an English composer of some celebrity declared that there was nothing in Aus- 

 tralia to inspire the musician; but this is mere assertion, for the Land of the Sunny 

 South, with its mystic past, the romance of its discovery, and the striking beauty and 

 poetic suggestiveness of its scenic characteristics, should surely not be without fascination 

 to the genius of a musician in search of a theme. Up to the present, the talent of 

 colonial musicians has been confined mainly to the composition of cantatas some of un- 

 questionable merit and Masses, the most meritorious among the religious efforts being 

 the Mass composed by John .A. Delany, a talented young Sydney musician. A large 

 number of songs and miscellaneous concert-room instrumental pieces, and two or three 

 operettas have been thrown off during the past twenty years, and in the song-writing 

 Sir William Robinson, Governor of Western Australia, and ex-Governor of South Aus- 



