Very Mixed Salads at 1ZM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 12

Very Mixed Salads at 1ZM

STATION 1ZM (U.S.A.) used to play very little classical music, but this little was gratefully received since it came in punctual and solid doses. I

remember the announcer once claiming that the session was kept mainly for "the three B’s" and apologising for offering us a little Delius. Since a recent complaint in The Listener that our own 1ZM is playing classical music in the evenings I have been investigating the matter, and am pleased to report that the accusation is well founded. Classical music, including some quite rare treasures, may indeed be heard during the seven o'clock "Orchestral" hour; but whether it is a Haydn symphony or a major work of Delius, Bax or Walton, one must be prepared to take it side by side with Johann Strauss and Gershwin, or that unfortunate Henry Wood record in which‘scraps of the Unfinished Symphony and the 3rd Brandenburg make a mixed salad with scraps of Mendelssohn’s "Spring Song" and the overture te "Raymond." I have no wish to see our stations run on commercial lines, Dut necessity which obliges any shop, tearoom, or newspaper, for instance, to give its customers a sense of security by providing goods of stable quality under trustworthy labels is a very wholesome one. If 1ZM were to do this, it would soon have a strong and regular clientele.