A NEW ZEALAND COMPOSITION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 374, 23 August 1946, Page 5

A NEW ZEALAND COMPOSITION

»Sir,-In your issue of August 9, A. D. Heenan continues his attack upon my claims to be a competent critic of music, and says he finds it too much to believe that the late Sir Henry Wood would have agreed with my "well-known antimodernistic sentiments." Well, Mr, Editor, here is a little titbit of gossip on this head for Mr. Heenan, which he may believe or reject at his pleasure. On one of my last visits to a Prom concert at Queen’s Hall the programme included a hideous work by a modern composer, Malipiero, which I endured as long as possible, but finally left my seat and retired out of ear-shot until the din subsided. Afterwards I asked Sir Henry whether. he really liked this kind of stuff and why he tolerated it. His reply was to the effect that he, personally, detested the extreme modern idiom, and played it solely on his lifelong policy of trying everything once. When I told him what I had done, he laughed and said, "I thought I saw you out of the corner of my eye, and between ourselves, wished I could have gone with you!" If Sir Henry Wood were alive today, I feel sure he would back me up in my contention ‘that the basi¢ essential of any kind of music is that it be pleasant to the ear-I mean, of course, to the musician’s ear.

L. D.

AUSTIN

(Wellington).

(This correspondence is now closed, though A. D. Heenan may, if he wishes, exercise his right to reply briefly-Ed.).