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Sir,-If H. W. Schofield can at one moment listen to Azucena telling Manrico in dramatic recitative how she nearly burnt him alive in infancy, within two seconds be praying for someone in the Forces, and within a few more seconds switch his thoughts back to I] Trovatore, then I don’t believe prayer means to him what he pretends it does. If he wants some hundreds of people who are listening to a local performance of a grand opera for the first time in a year to fall to their knees at a given moment and pray for the fighting services he won’t get them to do it by rudely and rashly disturbing their enjoyment of good music with a gramophone record of the noises made by a clock they have never seen. And if he has not observed that allowing "Silent Prayer" to become a mere mechanical routine may make a mockery of any meaning the "period" may have, then he is’ not even remotely acquainted with the nature of prayer-Matthew, VI, 5-7 seems clear enough to me. It is H. W. Scholfield who is selfish, For those who can switch prayerful thoughts on and off at will, plenty of other stations are to be had at 9 p.m.
MISERERE
(Wellington).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 272, 8 September 1944, Page 22
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213INTERRUPTED OPERA New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 272, 8 September 1944, Page 22
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