POUISHNOFF AND HORACE STEVENS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 133, 7 June 1934, Page 7

POUISHNOFF AND HORACE STEVENS

REMARKABLE COMBINATION. In continuation of his policy of introducing to New Zealand music lovers none but the world’s finest musical geniuses, Mr. Hugo Larsen, the distinguished i impresario, announces the visit of Pouishnoff, “one of the most brilliant pianists London has ever heard,’ as the London Daily Telegraph announced him, and Horace Stevens, the world-famous Australian bass-baritone-They commence {ft the Opera House on Wednesday, June 13. Pouishnoff is an artist whose work is his story. His sensational success, and the adjective is used only because it is true, came of his music and nothing else. His career has been the logical development of an extraordinary gift, and he has made his name in Europe on sheer ability. In England and America he has established his name by a long chain of triumphs. The scenes which followed his appearance in London can only be compared with those greeting Paderewski in his palmy days. Pouishnoff was the first European artist to give a performance at Teheran, where he was received at Court and decorated by the Crown Prince of Persia. It is not generally known that Horace Stevens is the only artist whom Sir Henry Wood advised to give up his original career for that of singing. His first appearance at the Queen’s Hall, September 25, 1919, with the new Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood, England’s greatest conductor, immediately established him as one of the most distinguished singers of the present day- Horace Stevens made his debut at Covent Garden in 1927 at Wotan, when a packed house immediately realised that there was an artist cast in 'the same titanic mould as those who first built up Wagnerian traditions. The appearance of the two artists on the one concert platform is unique. Pouishnoff travels with his own piano.