MODERN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 77, 13 December 1940, Page 19

MODERN MUSIC

Sir-I have been an interested and often indignant reader of your modern music controversy. Now I must "glut my ire."

L. D. Austin is apparently a learned man, but he arouses me with his blustering verbosity and cynicism, his cold, sometimes crude, logic, which deceives nobody, and his bigoted condemnation of the tastes of his contemporaries. I agree with the sentiments expressed by "Bing-Eddy." I am justifiably incensed that people who ought to know better should "insult the tastes" and intelligence of the generation to which " Bing-Eddy" and I are both proud to belong. It is sheer ignorance on the part of these people to assert their intolerance of modern music. Mr. Austin’s conclusion that modern music is a manifestation of paganism is sweeping but not at all authentic. If it were, then people who enjoy modern music, and especially those who play it, would also be pagans or have pagan leanings. I wonder if Mr. Austin has heard of Kay Kyser. This man, who conducts America’s No. 1 Dance Orchestra, is one of the finest and most righteous persons one could ever hope to meet. He finds, as I and many others do, that modern music is recreation for the soul and morally uplifting to the mind. Paganism is far removed from these. Then I wonder if Mr. Austin has heard of Artie Shaw and his orchestra, Artie leads one of the ten best bands in America, and he, for the generation be represents, shows that he is not intolerant of the views and tastes of others. I wonder if Mr. Austin has heard his orchestra play Pucelli’s "Serenade" and "The Prelude in C Sharp Major." Classical music will always have a place in the world and a listener and learner in me. This place will be distinct from that held by modern music, but its exponents will never question the right

of classical music to exist.

A.

TODD

(Picton).