DUNEDIN R.S. CHOIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 325, 14 September 1945, Page 5

DUNEDIN R.S. CHOIR

Sir -The Returned Services Choir’s attention has been drawn to a paragraph in The* Listener for August 17th under the title of "Onward" in the Radio Viewsreel column. The Choir is not at all concerned with your commentator’s effort to "damn us with’ faint praise.’ We welcome constructive criticism. Like every other mtisigal society in the Dominion we often deserve but seldom get good constructive criticism. Your commentator takes us to task for our choice of items, however, which is a very different matter. New music has been unobtainable during the war years and an order placed in 1942 has just come to-hand, sixty pounds worth in fact, the average cost being 1/6 a copy. Four of these new numbers (including "Smiling’ Thru’") were on the programme under review and were arrangements by Doris Arnold, who is tecognised’ as outstanding. To suggest that they are hackneyed and that "Hallelujah Power and Glory" was the only item of musical worth is just pure nonsense, The composers of all the other items are world-famous, although they may not be known to your commentator, It should be mentioned too that the harmonies in Doris Arnold’s arrange‘ments,of popular songs are very modern and much more difficult to vocalise than "Hallelujah Power and Glory." The items in the programme were chosen for their special significance, as for instance "The Road to Mandalay" (as a tribute to the 14th Army).

P. F.

HARRE

(Dunedin R.S. Choir).