"PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1 OF CROONERS"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 116, 12 September 1941, Page 10

"PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1

OF CROONERS"

Dr. Lyon Still Doesn’t Like Jass

HREE years ago Dr. J. Lyon, examiner in music for Trinity College, London, and a well known English composer, gave an interview in Christchurch in which he had some hard things to say. about crooners. He prefers to forget the exact terms in which he referred to them, but he admits that he didn’t mince words. What he had not been anticipating was the flood of publicity which his criticism received, and by the time he returned to England, his family had collected a whole sheaf of press cuttings, all of them proclaiming him as public enemy number one of crooners. In the meantime Dr. Lyon, who is making his third visit to New Zealand, hasn’t taken back a word of what he said about crooners in particular and --

jazz in general. That is not to say he is intolerant of the type of music which plays such a large part in radio entertainment. "I’ve nothing against jazz, but don’t make me listen to it," is his final judgment. " Needless to say I make full use of that wonderful little attachment fitted to every radio which enables me to censor anything I don’t want to hear." " Return to Sanity" Taking a philosophical view of present trends in popular music, Dr. Lyon feels sure that there will be "a return to sanity" after the present war. Much of the unrest of modern music was born out of the disillusionment following the last war, he thinks, and after the chastening experiences of this one, music will\again resume its traditional quest for beauty. Dr. Lyon is far from unsympathetic towards advance and progression in music, however. He remembers when he himself was criticised for modernity. This applied particularly to his one-act opera Stormwrack which caused some

alarm among the musicians of a Liverpool orchestra which gathered ‘to rehearse the score prior to its premier. The ’cellist took one look at the music on his stand, scratched his head and said, "What’s this fifteen-eight time? I’ve never heard of it before." Eventually, thanks to a good deal of painstaking reheatsal, the orchestra mastered the music, and the opera was apparently received with great enthusiasm by the first-night audience, The following day, however, Dr. Lyon overheard a conversation between

7 _two workmen on a bus which somewhat | dampened his spirits. (It was in Liverpool, it must be remembered, a great music-loving city, where the enjoyment of music and opera surmounts all class distinctions.) "What did you think of that there new opera last night, Bert?" ,asked one workman. of the. other. "Bloody awful,’ replied the other tersely.

Recalling the incident, Dr. Lyon feels sure that the two workmen were musical conservatives to the backbone, and that it was the modernity of the opera which offended them, A Prolific Composer Dr, Lyon, who was for ten years associated with the Midlands Institute School of Music, Birmingham, and who has long been one of Liverpool’s best known teachers of music, has the distinction of having been himself taught every instrument except the trombone, Years ago, however, he had to make a choice between playing and composing, and he chose composing. He must be one of the most prolific composers of serious music to-day. Besides Stormwrack he has written La Sirena, a story in four acts which was performed by the Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra five years ago, and a fairy play, Dream Come True. He has also written a big sacred trilogy (Annunciation, Man of Sorrows, and Revelation), which takes four and a half hours to produce and which was performed in part as a cantata at the Alexander Palace with a chorus of a thousand and an orchestra of over a hundred. Based on Maori Legend But perhaps the most interesting of all Dr. Lyon’s compositions is a symphonic poem Hinemoa, which he believes is the first attempt to treat a Maori legend in symphonie form. The foundation for it was laid during his visit to New Zealand in 1934, when he was so struck by the songs of New Zealand birds that he wrote many of them down, note for note. These bird songs he has incorporated in what he thinks ° will be one of the most effective passages in the symphony, one which evokes the picture of Hinemoa lying under the trees by the lake’s edge, listening to the flute-call of Tutanekai above the music of the singing of innumerable birds, : Dr. Lyon naturally hopes that the first performance of Hinemoa will be given in New Zealand, and he says it is possible this may be arranged Jater in the year, Maori music, says Dr. Lyon, is one of the most difficult to isolate, as it (Continued on next page)

URTHER fulminations were hurled at jazz by Dr. Lyon when judging a violin scholarship the other evening at the Wellington Competitions. " Music is the nearest thing to Heaven we have on earth," said Dr, Lyon. "Do you wonder that I lose my temper when I hear all these jazz things over the radio? Is it not a crime? Music is the most refining and elevating of all the arts, I am not saying anything against radio, except that so many things are broadcast regardless of propriety. "I do not suggest that the radio should be switched off all the time, but I do suggest that you parents make up your minds as to what you would like to hear, and not just leave the radio going all day. Be wise in your selection ) of radio music," =

HE DOESN'T LIKE JAZZ (Continued from previous page) were, in its natural folk idiom. Along with many other visiting musicians, he makes the complaint that much of what passes for Maori music is European music superimposed on a shaky local foundation. Dr. Lyon left England last July, and since then has had his fair share of the misfortunes of war. Two days out from England the ship on which he was travelling was twice bombed and machine-gunned by Nazi planes, and later he was to receive cabled news of the destruction by blitz of his home in Birmingham. The greater part of his stay in New Zealand is being spent touring from one end of the country to the other examining for Trinity College, with judging at the Wellington Competitions as a strenuous interlude. Dr. Lyon will be in the Dominion until after Christmas, and expects to spend the greater part of 1942 in Australia. Last Sunday, September 7, at 8.5 p.m., Dr. Lyon was heard from the 2YA studio conducting the augmented NBS String Orchestra in three of his own compositions. They were Idyll (four movements for strings); Autumn (a souvenir for erchestra); and a _ suite, The Palace of Cards. "A happy half hour of music by a living composer, very much alive at the age of 70," was how Dr. Lyon described his programme,