Compare and Contrast
"PROVOCATIVE programme" in intention and execution was 3YA’s Hands Off the Masters, demonstrating the origin of some popular tunes of the day and contrasting new arrangements with original settings. At the risk of incurring the wrath of many contraryminded listeners, I am provoked to remark that the masters have little to fear
at the hands of these Tin Pan Alley song-merchants. This programme was skilfully designed to bring out the differences between the original, as planned by Grieg, for instance, and the popular as rendered by Benny Goodman, rather than the obvious but superficial similarities, Like the Englishman who can talk French and make it sound to the casual ear as if he is still talking English, Benny Goodman can play Grieg or Chopin or Tchaikovski and still make it sound exactly like Benny Goodman playing anything else. It is a process of standardization, and nobody suffers for it but the unwilling listener-least of all the masters. And having committed myself thus far, -I am further provoked to brave unjustified charges of highbrowism with the comment that it is the light popular classics rather than the great masterpieces of music that lend themselves to be tampered with in this way. If Liszt’s Liebestraum No, 3 can survive the onslaught of half-a-dozen’ swing versions, so much the better for Liszt; if not-dare I say it?-the world is no great loser.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19471219.2.20.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 443, 19 December 1947, Page 11
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232Compare and Contrast New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 443, 19 December 1947, Page 11
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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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