PROBLEMS FOR ORCHESTRAS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 506, 4 March 1949, Page 12

PROBLEMS FOR ORCHESTRAS

Australian Ban on Foreigners

f Sade recent ruling barring aliens from membership of the Australian Musicians’ Union led the "Sydney Morning Herald" to ask Eugene Goossens, Director of the N.S.W. Conservatorium and Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, to explain what the consequences might be, Here are portions of Mr. Goossens’s replys is stated that the object of the ruling is "to discourage musicians from overseas migrating in large numbers to Australia, lured by good conditions, including food and other considerations." I suppose that after living for some years on a weekly 14 pennyworth of meat and two eggs a month, the word "lured" isn’t too vivid a term. But the Union is still confronted by certain unpalatable, but inescapable, facts regarding the general’ symphonic situation "throughout the Commonwealth.

These problems {nce Australian Orchestras: (a) The ‘isinnea. and absolute dearth of first-class Australian symphonic material, measured by international standards-the fine Sydney and Melbourne orchestras alone excepted.

(b) The shaky calibre of personnel of Australia’s four remaining orchestras, which makes rehearsal and performance by them of any but the most hackneyed works a major and risky adventure. (c) A past. heritage of mediocre teaching of. stringed, wood-wind and brass instruments which has produced, with a few notable exceptions, a generation of players lacking style and technical brilliance. (d) The inability of many players, particularly strings, to pass even the most elementary sight-reading and aural tests at orchestral auditions, (e) The almost total lack of firstclass replacements for at least three of our orchestras, and the consequent inability to staff prospective conservatoriums in those cities with any but mediocre teachers. This dispassionate appraisal of affairs is made after nearly two years’ first-hand, nation-wide investigation. In the face of it, the union secretary’s reported statement that "employers must be prevented from engaging aliens until there is enough work available for Australian musicians," strikes a rather ironical note,

Let me make t clear at the outset that, as director of the Sydney Symphony and Conservatorium, and frequent guest conductor of the other orchestras of the country, I am as jealous of the rights‘and as solicitous of the welfare of Australian musicians as any native-born Australian. When the gentlemen of the union promulgate a ruling which slams the country’s gates in the faces of those who could make all the difference to orchestral standards in Australia (thereby arousing the derision of the entire international music-loving fraternity), it is obvious that they and I are working at cross purposes. And when my good friend Mr. Kitson, secretary of the Musicians’ Union, announces that "it is not necessary to import players to build an orchestra, because the key to good music is the conductor’s baton," it is also obvious that the issues between us must be clarified. Symphonic playing calls for expert performers-specialists in their line. The city which cannot produce them, or import them, must be saddled permanently with an inferior organisation.

The dearth is as real in Sydney as elsewhere. How many realise that were a last-minute unforeseen circumstance to prevent certain first and second-desk wind players from appearing at a Town Hall symphony concert, the lack of adequate substitute players in this city of 14% millions would probably force abrupt cancellation of the concert? Benefit from New Arrivals "It is a fallacy, the Union says, to imagine that because a musician is of foreign birth and has a foreign name, his musical ability is greater than that of an Australian." Agreed. Yet three "foreigners," bearing the everyday names of Green, Gray and Gregory, are to a very great degree responsible for the recent improvement in the playing of the Sydney orchestra. It is common knowledge that only the sudden appearance in Australia of Mr. Tilsey from the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester enabled "The Firm" to open its. Melbourne Italian opera season with a complete orchestra. This gentleman and his second-oboe partner were both indisposed at a later Melbourne performance, and with no substitutes available, Mr. Ghione suffered the humiliation of conducting a Puccini opera without any oboes at all. To complete the saga, the player be- ing still indisposed when the company arrived-in Sydney, I had to consent to release Mr. Green from his Conservatorium opera duties to take the player’s" place at the opening rehearsals and performance of Aida at the Tivoli; no Sydney player being procurable. So much for the available "wealth of talent" referred to by the secretary. The Union goes on to say this: "Our action is no different from that of an industry seeking a tariff to keep out goods from overseas." The simile is inept. Foreign virtuosi entering a country deficient in that commodity should be labelled vital raw material! It isn’t sufficient that Brisbane and Perth should want to build conservatoriums. They must get ‘professors to train the young students into first-class players. Where are these much-needed, high-grade professors? If not in our cities, they must come from abroad, not only to teach, but to take a first-desk post, if necessary, in the local orchestra, No first-class solo orchestral performer is too good to hold a post at the local Conservatorium; conversely the fallacy that any unqualified antiquarian is good enough to teach must be exploded, and is being exploded rapidly. World comment on the union bannot yet available-will be caustic and dismayed; in the cultural sense, Australia has experienced a major set-back in her development. Foreign Players in Britain and U.S. In a country so thinly populated as this one, no one in his senses would urge the policy of a wide-open door for hordes of foreign musicians menacing the livelihood of our players. Yet I’m sure there isn’t a musician in those shortly-to-be-disbanded orchestras of the Italian opera and Ballet Rambert (capable performers who would probably be the first to disclaim top symphonic rating), who would pretend to see in the annual arrival of a mere three or four foreign performers-to bolster the country’s symphonic standard — a menace to his livelihood. American and Australian conditions are hardly comparable, yet to-day the great orchestras of America-the world’s finest — contain an average of 70 per

cent. foreign names in their "personnel" lists. My former 55-year-old orchestra of Cincinnati included 62 foreigners, all of whom became full-fledged American citizens after they joined, the orchestra. Every single principal player and the majority of the rank-and-file of the London Queen’s Hall orchestra were foreigners when I first joined it as violinist in 1911. These men influenced and helped mould the present virtuoso tradition of the British orchestral player. Can we in Australia (particularly at its present stage of musical development) pretend that we can entirely dispense with the cosmopolitan factor which has helped to make British and American orchestras what they are to- | day?