Woof, Woof, Woof

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 8

Woof, Woof, Woof

P to a point music can speak for itself, even to beginners, and any remarks about it should be a tentative addition rather than a substitute. H. C. Luscembe in his Pageant of Music series from 1YA has the unenviable task of selecting highlights of music, and making appropriate comments. Enthusiasm and knowledge afe not enough foi this job: it needs a kind of instinct to decide just what fact about 4 given work is important to a given group of listeners, and courage to omit the rest when time a

presses. I cannot tell how it sttiacs secondary . school children for whom the talks are/shaped,*but at a point of musical experience about halfway between them and Mr. Luscombe, I feel sometimes that he is adding to the complexities of the subject. Do the illustrations, for instance, of first, middle and last movements of Mozart symphonies need to be fragments from different. symphonies; necessitating abrupt changes of key? And if a song is chosen to illustrate the wit. and social implications of Mozart’s operas, would it not be better: to have one that is recorded in English, . li 44 4 ia ae

to save the need Of (ralwien 4 listeners beforehand? With the time thus saved we might have heard a little more of Gluck than one excerpt lasting less than a minute. Even here there was a little c@nfusion, for we were told tolisten to the barking ‘of the sevenheaded dog Cerebus, but what we heard was Giluck’s orchestra going "Woof, Woof, Woof," for Gluck, like Virgil, thought he had only a -_three-headed beast to deal with. e