Three to Seventy-Three
THINK Quilter’s "Children’s Overture" is one of the most appealing pieces of music ever written. Other composers have written for children, written about children, or written during their own childhood. Most of the works which result are too sophisticated in technique to appeal to children and too naive
in theme to appeai to grown-ups, Quilter has solved this problem by means of a simple piece of plagiarism. He has: taken the tunes of a number of nursery-rhymes for ‘his thematic material and elaborated
them into an overture. No grown-up scorns a nursery-tune as being too naive, since the charm of such music lies in its ingenuousness. And the composer, although his method of working is professional enough, does not employ abstruse harmony or complicated decoration, but states and combines his tunes in a clear fashion whereby children and adults alike can recognise the themes whenever they occur. This "Children’s Overture" is one of the few attempts ‘of its kind which have "come off," and can be appreciated on first hearing by highbrows and nobrows alike-indeed by anyone from three to 73 who is not entirely tone-deaf.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450831.2.17.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 323, 31 August 1945, Page 8
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189Three to Seventy-Three New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 323, 31 August 1945, Page 8
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