DE PROFUNDIS
Sir,-I write in the bitterness of my soul. I have had a bad afternoon. Being fond of music, and now in my old age being free for the first time in my life to indulge my hobby in the day-time, I have for the last twelve months made the most of those hours in which the YA Stations profess to provide "Classical Music." My first disappointment was to find that in radio circles "Classical Music’ does not mean classical music, but just music, as opposed to noises made with musical instruments. Still, it was nice to hear some of the classics and also some good music of later date. But Monday, March 3, provided programmes which could not rightly be called classical, no matter what definition of that word be adopted. I started with Wellington at 2.30 p.m. For a whole half hour I listened in hope while a tenor and a baritone sang. Whatever may have been the merits of the songs and the singing, a whole halfhour of it was too large a proportion of the one hour which was supposed to be devoted to classical music. So at 3 p.m. I turned on 3YA (I can’t get Auckland on my set). There I got Paganini’s Concerto in D Major, a work of absolutely (Continued on next page)
(Continued from previous page) no merit, designed merely to show off the conjuring tricks of its composer, and his imitators. This of course was good (or bad) for half an hour too, but there was one bright hope — Dunedin begins at 3.30, and Dunedin has a more discriminating public to cater for. So at 3.30 p.m. on went 4YA, arid on came (believe me or not!) the famous Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss! The next item was worse -- Gounod’s Ave Maria, especially arranged for violin, harp and croéner, followed by a "Concert Paraphrase" by Strauss arranged by somebody or other for the same group of performers, Somewhere in the course of this afternoon nightmare there came, unannounced, a snippet of Haydn’s Clock Symphony. It was cut short after a few minutes. Was it put on by mistake? Or was it just a stop-gap while the operator hunted for the next bit of claptrap? At any rate it was the only bit of classical (or high-class) music that I got for all my pains this afternoon. Why, Sir — we should do better — but the rest of that sentence might be construed as high
treason:
F. N.
TAYLOR
(Christchurch).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 92, 28 March 1941, Page 10
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419DE PROFUNDIS New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 92, 28 March 1941, Page 10
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