What is Music?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 11

What is Music?

HAVE had a surfeit, I think, of radio panels, discussions, and brains trusts, Subjects tend to be repeated from different stations, and there is a limit to (continued on next page)

RADIO VIEWSREEL

(continued from previous page) what ideas can be expressed on each theme. But a fresh subject found my interest reviving, and I tuned to 4YA to hear Henry Thornton and Christopher Small giving their ideas on "What do you mean by good music?" Unfortunately the speakers, after their initial definitions of ""good music,’ plunged listeners into an analysis of the possible emotional content of certain specified compositions by great masters. This was splendid for those who knew the works referred to; but the radio audience does not consist solely of connoisseurs who know their Bach and Beethoven. The connoisseur, anyhow, knows perfectly well what he means by good music, and doesn’t need a radio discussion on the subject; whereas any listener not a musical highbrow would probably have switched off when the deep waters of technical and emotional analysis threat‘|.ened to engulf him. I am sure more general interest could have been given to the discussion if even a part of some of the quoted works could actually have been played. After all, it means absolutely nothing to a listener unfamiliar with a work to be told that it expresses an exaltation of spirit; no radio discussion can prove that point half as quickly as the hearing of the work itself.