Is It What It's Cracked Up To Be?
"DACIFIC Image," said the announcer, "is a work of deep and sincere emotion. It is not for the ordinary listener, but for those who ate prepared to sit quietly and let the emotion unfold for itself." Resisting an immediate, if perverse, instinct to switch off, I sat quietly and was interested. The com-poser-author, John Gough, said in his introduction that he had aimed to present a picture of the Pacific "through the méthod of melodrama." Just what he meant by this I am not quite clear, but the main characteristic of the work appeared to be the attempt to transport the imagination into a completely different physical sphere. Thus we began with the idea of waves and a brassy Van Gogh sunrise; and the first half of the work, interspersed with excerpts from Ecclesiasticus and the Psalms, aimed at painting a picture of the sea’s surface; it was interesting to compare it with Constant Lambert’s "Merchant Seamen," which, clearly contained the idea of the Atlantic. But the second part took a deep breath and plunged below the surface with Walt Whitman, who makes us see, feel, and taste the underwater world by his own methods, the music nobly supporting him.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450427.2.27.9
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 13
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208Is It What It's Cracked Up To Be? New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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