Reply by "ABC Review"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 218, 27 August 1943, Page 8

Reply by "ABC Review"

ip its issue of July 10, the "ABC Review," journal of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, refers ‘ to this attack in its leading article. We quote it in full: "[GNAZ FRIEDMAN, who is well known to Australian listeners through his. appearances on the ABC networks,

has spoken very disparagingly of music in Australia. "Friedman is a noted Polish pianist, whose travels and experience entitle him to be heard on comparative musical cultures. But when he declares that Australia has spent enormous amounts on music but got nothing of value from it, Australians may reasonably think that he is overstating the case to arrest attention. ‘$ "Mr. Friedman's. own broadcasts: should not be entirely without value to listeners. Although he may consider that Australia’s five main orchestras © if lumped together, would not make a good one, conductors who have a wider. knowledge of orchestral standards have been more generous in their appreciation and less sweeping if their condemnation. "It may be true that the large audiences attending orchestral. concerts in Australia are, as Mr. Friedman says, no proof that Australians are genuinely interested in music. But, conversely, Mr, Friedman has established nothing to prove that they’re not interested. "The reasonable assumption is that people who pay to attend concerts do so because they are at least interested in music, even though their taste and discrimination may not be equal to that of the professional musician. "These wholesale condemnations of our musical taste follow a conventional pattern, and in so far as they keep us from any smug satisfaction with. our ‘Progress are useful. "In Poor Taste" "Tt must be recognised, however, that music, no matter how important, cannot | be the sole pre-occupation of a pera at. war. (Continued on next page)

(continued trom previous page) "Mr. Friedman’s suggestion that some of the brass players ought to be sent to the Far East to break down the walls of Jericho is in poor taste. Quite a number of Australian musicians have gone to the Far East for purposes more important than blowing down the walls of Jericho. The war, in fact, has withdrawn. many excellent players from the ABC’s orchestras, but we have no doubt that Mr, Friedman himself will recognise that it is better to have indifferent orchestras in a country still free to enjoy them than to have the best orchestras in the world playing to foreign invaders."