Brass Bands
\ X 7E are pleased to find space in this issue.for an appeal for more sympathy for brass bands. Although our correspondent is in error when he says that we made no reference at all to the contest in Auckland, we could have given more space without risking a complaint from some other correspondent that we had given too much. We gave all the information we had-all, that is to say, with which we were sup-plied-but we do not suggest that our responsibility ended there. We say simply that owing to staff difficulties we could not at the time cover the event more adequately. But when our correspondent goes further and says that "the bandsman is looked down upon" we. must say in reply, first, that the charge is not .true, and second, that if it were true, his is not the best method of meeting it. His reference to "waterside bands" (in quotation marks) is particularly unfortunate, since no one cares who. produces the music he hears if he likes it. If there were any social issues involved the position surely would be that no one likes a. watersider so well as when he is making music. It may have surprised some people-but if it did that would only be because they should have known better than to be surprised-that the best players of sacred music in Auckland were watersiders; but even if it surprised them it must have given them a great deal of pleasure. It is not because of their occupation that bandsmen are ever criticised or ignored, but because there is a fairly wide aesthetic gulf between the music usually played by brass bands and that usually played by the "’cellists, harpists, and so forth" in symphony orchestras. Our correspondent is however right in saying that if the coverage we gave bandsmen were "on a par with their keenness and unselfishness" we would have space for nothing else. We might even, if we did that, have a considerable circulation, but it would come from one section of the musical publi¢ only, and it is our difficult task to cater for all sections. »
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 505, 25 February 1949, Page 5
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357Brass Bands New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 505, 25 February 1949, Page 5
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