"MUSIC MUST BE TAKEN TO THE PEOPLE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 160, 17 July 1942, Page 6

"MUSIC MUST BE TAKEN TO THE PEOPLE"

EASONS why the New ZeaR radio audience should be hearing contemporary music, and some suggestions on how to listen to it were offered by Thomas Matthews, who has recently completed a period of several weeks as guest conductor to the 1YA Orchestra in Auckland. Mr. Matthews has had recent first-hand experience of the effects of new music, both as observed from the orchestra and from the audience, and has also had personal associations with certain modern works, for instance, Benjamin Britten's violin concerto, of which he gave the first performance in England. Delius’s violin concerto, which Mr. Matthews presented recently in Auckland, was also first performed by him in Finland after he had studied it with Albert Sammons, to whom it was dedicated.

"People could hear contemporary music in this country through at least three mediums," he said. "First, a society specially founded to propagate and foster it. Second, public concerts, of which there seem to be regrettably few. And third, the most powerful medium, radio. I noticed while I was in America that practically every concert I went to had a piece of contemporary American music in the programme. Stokowski in particular seems determined to have something new as often as possible. But this state of affairs is quite a recent innovation. The practice had to be established in America, and I think it could be established in New Zealand." Something Done Already In any case, Mr. Matthews himself has done something already. While he has been conducting the 1YA Orchestra, first New Zealand performances have been given of a Concert Overture by Douglas Lilburn, works by Aaron Copland, George Butterworth, Edmund Rubbra, and Turina. "Composers like these are not chattering among themselves, above (or below), the audience’s heads," Mr.

Matthews went on. "They are not ‘difficult’ to listen to. Of course there’s a lot of contemporary music that can’t be done here at all, because of its technical difficulty, so that can only be heard with the help of the gramophone. The gramophone is a good thing in enabling the people to hear things they wouldn’t hear otherwise, but it is a bad thing when it prevents orchestras from getting to know the repertoire they would know otherwise. Who Listens?

"Then there’s this in favour of actual oleinitit performance: in a concert hall you know that people have heard the music and you might even know what they have thought of it. But on the radio you don’t know whether people have heard two bars, or three bars, or what. My wife and I played the Rubbra sonata recently, but we haven’t the faintest idea who listened to it.

"Now supposing you had some group here to foster contemporary music. It would have to confine its activities to chamber music unless it joined forces in some way with the broadcasting orchestras. When I gave the first performance of the Benjamin Britten violin concerto in London it was done with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (under Clarence Raybould), at one of a regular series of public concerts devoted to contemporary music. What to Listen For We asked Mr. Matthews to say how new music should be listened to. "Take the average person hearing Beethoven," he said. "What does he expect? Tune? Or rhythm? Or both? I’m sure he doesn’t examine the form. Melodic or rhythmic interest are the first things. Well, it’s the same with new music, that is what the radio listener should be looking for when he hears a contemporary work. Not any ‘message.’ The first thing is just to decide whether he enjoys the sound of it, and if he finds he does, then he can look for some message in it later on. (Continued on next page)

English Conductor Sums Up After Visit ‘To: N.Z.

(Continued from previous page) "On a first hearing, perhaps he doesn’t like the tune; or the ‘tonality’ is beyond him, The rhythmic interest alone holds his attention, Take William Walton; though you may not like him, he has such vitality and rhythmic energy that his music doesn’t leave the listener like the swimmer without a lifebelt. "But some listeners may never get past their first stage of continuing to listen just out of enjoyment. Even so, I don’t think contemporary music ought to be ‘explained’ at a first hearing. As I say, the listener should just concern himself with whether the sound of it pleases him. Even Schonberg, I think, can be listened to on this basis." A New Zealand Composer Asked about New Zealand composers, Mr. Matthews said that he had found Douglas Lilburn very interesting. Here you have a composer, undoubtedly of great talent. His music is full of ideas, though naturally it is also full of Vaughan Williams, his teacher, and Sibelius is there, too, But Lilburn has something to say, and it is good that he is. following two very good composers. "A New Zealand musician told me, by the way, that when he was in Eng-

land, he heard some Sibelius and immediately felt he was back in New Zealand, because there was something in the music that seemed to belong to the New Zealand landscape. So maybe the presence of Sibelius in Lilburn’s scoring is right and proper." "For an early work, the Concert Overture shows enormous promise. Both my wife and I think it far ahead of anything being done anywhere by men of Lilburn’s age. The 1YA Orchestra liked playing the overture, but I had a feeling that they didn’t quite realise just how good it was." Broadcasting Alone Not Enough Mr. Matthews added that he hoped Lilburn would some day have the opportunity of trying out his work in actual performance., "When I think of what it must have meant to Haydn to be able to play his music straight away with an orchestra, and how Sibelius must have benefited from having the chance to hear all his music, I hope Lilburn will get a chance like that. A composer must hear his music as it sounds in the orchestra; it is very different from what he ‘hears in his head." Mr. Matthews ended by saying that the, musical future of, New Zealand

rested with the Broadcasting Service; since there could never be enough private money available to establish and foster orchestras. But broadcasting alone was not sufficient. "Music must be taken to the people," and that meant a permanent State orchestra able to go on tour,