CHRISTCHURCH LADIES' CHOIR
Sir,-My attention has been drawn to an article in your issue of May 1 by a contributor signing himself (or herself) " Marsyas." One paragraph of this article refers to the Christchurch Ladies’ Choir, and as it gives to your readers an altogether false impression of the work of this choir I should be glad if you would print the real facts, which are as follows:1. The name was altered at the special request of the broadcasting authorities. 2. The same authorities have asked us to submit programmes of an attractive character, and of not too classical a nature. 3. The programme of our last broadcast at the end of last year contained a group of the Elizabethan compositions which " Marsyas" seems so anxious to hear. 4. Your contributor is either very ignorant of our work or very forgetful, as the choir has given a group of Elizabethan Madrigals or Canzonets at least once a year since the inception of the society. 5. Your contributor evidently does not know, as he or she says, what the choral libraries are like in New Zealand, anyhow not the Library of this Society.
If the compositions of Vaughan" Williams, Elgar, Brahms, Schumann, Rubinstein, Parry, Holst, Ireland and Kodaly (to mention a few of the composers whose works have been performed by this choir) are not stimulating enough, then your contributor must be a very superior person indeed. Although I have studied all kinds of catalogues and musical magazines I have been unable to find a major work for women’s voices written by any of the great composers, and if your writer could suggest one, or better still present us with the copies we should be most grateful. My sole object in writing this letter is to defend the Christchurch Ladies’ Choir from a quite undeserved attack, but Ido not think I should be the only musician who raised an eyebrow (I nearly wrote high brow) ‘when your contributor includes Walford Davies and Frank Bridge in a sentence commencing, "I’ve nothing against any of these composers."
ALFRED
WORSLEY
Conductor of the Christchurch Ladies’ Choir,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 152, 22 May 1942, Page 4
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352CHRISTCHURCH LADIES' CHOIR New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 152, 22 May 1942, Page 4
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