Serious but Not Classical
N the same’ programme Oscar Levant played Gershwin’s Concerto in F Major. Most of us know Oscar Levant, the tubby, talented, amazing person who answers the musical questions in the Information Please film shorts. His life reads like that of a madman or a genius. After hearing the Concerto, I incline to the latter assumption, although his versatility has precluded him from displaying his full talent in any of the various spheres in which he dabbles. The Gershwin Concerto, like the concertos of the great masters, is in three movements; but there the resemblance ceases, and any further pretensions to orthodoxy are. coincidental. Symphonic works in the jazz idiom -are so far removed from the popular hits of the day that the average «jazz fan wouldn’t recognise them, as in the same category; yet they cannot stand even remote. comparison with classical works on the same model. A new word should be coined for such works, which alone of all the trash of modern jazz have any claim to be classed as serious music. 3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 8
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179Serious but Not Classical New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 8
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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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