Scottish Songs
IN a recent Sunday 4YA played a programme by the Glasgow Arion Choir, a series of Scottish songs sung in a most satisfactory way by a really well-balanced and well-drilled choir. The programme, a BBC production, ¢contained many well-loved favourites, and some not so familiar. No fault could be found with the singing, but I felt that in one or two cases the arrangement was too elaborate; the simple, typical Scottish airs were overlaid with layers of counterpoint until they were recognisable only because they were well known, and memory was able to fill in the notes and phrases which the ear failed to distinguish. Surely Jhe purpose of a choral arrangement ef a folktune or traditional air is to enhance
the melody; when the arrangement becomes too intricate the whole béauty of the thing--namely, its exquisite sim-plicity-is lost. Was it necessary, also, for the announcer to explain carefully that the victim in the old song about the Deil and the Exciseman is really our old acquaintance the customsofficer? But perhaps I am bridling over a trifle; not all listeners to this programme would hail from Dunedin, and perhaps explanations are necessary to the Sassenach.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 420, 11 July 1947, Page 8
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197Scottish Songs New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 420, 11 July 1947, 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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