MUSIC FOR ALL TASTES
Sir-"‘The trouble about classical music is that, although comparatively few want it, these few want it very badly indeed," wrote your critic in "Viewsreel" last week (January 8). He goes on to complain that holiday time (and he could have added every weekend) provides very little musical fare
for those whose taste is "highbrow." I heartily agree with him, though the few are perhaps more than he thinks (witness the overcrowded chamber music and luncheon concerts last winter). I think there is a simple remedy for satisfying the taste of both the sophisticated ones and of the others; it would also do away with the excuse of the programme-organisers that they have to please all kinds of taste, We have three or four broadcasting stations in the main centres. Why not convert one of them (2YC in Wellington, for example) into a "highbrow station," which would limit itself to broadcasting "classical" programmes in the widest sense: i.e., serious music (classical and modern), talks on literature, art, etc.? 2ZB and 2YD cater for the "lowbrow," 2YA mostly for the "middlebrow" (but not on Saturdays, when its programme is identical with the two above-mentioned stations). Why, then, victimise a high-brow-minority which in a democratic country has a right to be taken into consideration, too? Anyone not finding these programmes to his or her taste would not be compelled to listen to "this kind of stuff,’ but could tune into other stations which would be more to his liking. For the "chosen few" this new atrangement would be a great delight. It also would make it unnecessary to interrupt Beethoven’s Pathetique in the middle of a movement in order to broadcast racing results. Has ever a race meeting commentary been interrupted — I wonder-for the broadcasting of a sonata or a symphony?-HIGHBROW, AND PROUD OF IT (Wellington).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 292, 26 January 1945, Page 5
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307MUSIC FOR ALL TASTES New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 292, 26 January 1945, Page 5
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