MECHANISED MUSIC

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 136, 5 December 1929, Page 29

MECHANISED MUSIC

GRAMOPHONES AND BROAD-

CASTING

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, Ist November.

At, the.. Guildhall. School of Music prize-distribution, Sir Landon Ronald (Principal) made a notable defence of the gramophone and the wireless, maintaining that the public taste for good music was so greatly improved by those agencies that nothing but the best would be tolerated. The 8.8.C. was a special boon to young musicians for they could perform to thousands of people without having to wait for years to gain recognition from concertgoers.

Sir Landon said it was often stated that music in this country was going through*a critical stage, and the blame for this was put on the mechanical reproduction of miisie^-wireless and the gramophone. With regard to the teaching profession, he was bound to confess that many cases had been brought to his notice where wireless had affected its members. Parents said they would not go on with their children's musical lessons because they could listen in. . "Believe me," said Sir Landon, "this is a passing phase. The love of performance—bad, good, and indifferent—is born in all of us. It will assert itself, and become more powerful than ever. You will never make me believe that this nation will become a nation of listeners. Everybody likes .to do something, even though they cannot do it well. When the longing of performance comes back to our young people, as it will, they will not be content to learn 'Alice, Where Art Thout' and variations of 'Home, Sweet Home,' Their tone will have been raised by what they have heard in listening in and on-the gramophone, and they will'want greater and better music." •

As for the artists' side of the question, Sir Landon said it had been stated that wireless had ruined artists and that they were starving. That was a most fallacious and ridiculous statement. The 8.8.C. couia not exist were it not for artists, and it had been a boon and a blessing to many a youngster. If an artist had "got the goods" he or she could go to Savoy Hill and sing to thousands of unseen people. That was not to say that it was easier to earn a living by music than in the past. Mediocrity was dead to-day. Only the best would do, and that was exactly what the mechanisation of the age had done. Whereas in the past Beethoven and other real composers were unknown to a vast number of people now the reverse was the case. Only recently a 'bus conductor had told Mm how much-be had enjoyed a Beethoven symphony played by an orchestra that he (Sir Landon) had conducted.