Music in War
ment of the New Zealand mind. For just on a hundred years music has been about as important nationally as paint on an outhouse. If we have the money, the inclination, and the time, we make our buildings pretty. Otherwise we forget about them. And so far we have forgotten, as a nation, about music. But those within reach of the Exhibition Studio this week will hear, or have heard, our first national orchestra. For the first time in our first century-we just escape overrunning the mark-we cease sailing culturally by guess and by God. We not only recognise music. We put our hands in our pockets and pay for it. So far so good. We are not the first Dominion to do this, but we are now doing it, and those who have tried in the humblest sphere to get in a word for culture will realise how creditable this decision is to the Government and to the Broadcasting Service. The really significant thing, however-we could almost say exciting-is that the appointment of these thirteen musicians is a war appointment. The orchestra has been assembled, not in spite of the war, but be- cause of it. If music is good in peace it is better in war. If it is necessary when there is no strain on our nerves it is absolutely essential when every day brings a new shock and a new excuse for hysteria or gloom. And there is more than that in it; far more. Music is international. It has long since obliterated frontiers all over the world. Let us have the courage to admit that the music of our present enemies, because it is the best music we know, helps us, and will continue to help us, to remain human beings. We are not at war with the people who created that music. We are hot at war with the people it has created-the millions of kindly, earnest, honest Germans who are as much the victims of Hitlerism as we are. ourselves. Peace will come to them when it comes to us, and when we all try to live again in harmony as neighbours, their music will help our efforts -as much as our poetry will help theirs, is an historic week in the develop-
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 25, 15 December 1939, Page 12
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383Music in War New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 25, 15 December 1939, Page 12
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