A Blow To Musical Snobbery

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 18, 27 October 1939, Page 34

A Blow To Musical Snobbery

By

Eric

Baker

O that people living thousands of years hence may know something of the musical tastes of 1939, an American professor has buried several gramophone records in a hermetically sealed tomb. His selection is said to be truly representative. The scheme commends itself. For one thing it will strike a deathblow at musical snobbery. It will not be a scrap of use for Toscannini to turn up his nose at Fats Waller, for that swing-time artist will probably reply with an "Tl be glad when you're dead, you rascal you." Charlie Kunz may stir from his long sleep for a moment to listen gravely to Backhaus strumming Brahms. Richard Crooks will nudge Paul Robeson in the ribs and wink slyly when Clara Butt and Sophie Breslau try to outboom each other; and a slap~cello artist might well say, "Oh, Yeah" to Jean Gerardy. However, whatever happens underground, some great artists-from spinetplayers to jitterbugs — are to share earthly quarters for a long, long time. It is to be hoped that the enterprising professor has made his tomb safe from the despoiler and its exact locality, a " dead secret," for there is a strong sense of etiquette among musicians. However great the temptation to hoist the sarcophagous prematurely, it must be remembered that it would be only courteous to leave the buried ones undisturbed until the sounding of the last Trump, so that that mighty instrument will not be purely solo on Grand Opening Day. How much nicer if the trump-and I have no intention of being irreverentis accompanied by, say, Josef Kaartinen playing second, Sydney Torch building up on the cinema organ, Benny Goodman’s hottest drummer doing the effects, and Leopold Stokowski conducting the ensemble! . But, after all, there may be no such thing as music when the melodic sepulchre is opened. Why should we worry?