Joy Cometh in the Morning

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 633, 17 August 1951, Page 11

Joy Cometh in the Morning

| ETTERS appearing in the press have led me in recent weeks to listen a little more attentively to breakfast sessions, I confined myself to the YA stations and frankly I cannot see what some people complain about. It is the Englishman's traditional privilege to be grumpy at breakfast and to retire behind The Times while eating his kidneys, and bacon, muttering about rising taxation and the results of the Tests in Australia. This is, of course, the characteristic legend of the English about them-selves-always the opposite to the truth. But in New Zealand breakfast (especially in the winter) is still a pretty grim meal, which it seems it is the avowed intention of the NZBS to brighten. They do this first with the so-called "popular" recordings which are usually of the bright and breezy type. When we do hear a sentimental ballad it is never really affecting, for while the "women waiting for her demon lover" may raise a tear, the crooner calling to its mate can arouse only a smile. It is the selection of records for the "classica] corner" that seems to have caused controversy. Personally, I thought them well chosen; the pieces short and usually well known, with not too many slow compositions. After all, try to select a set of records for a morning "classical corner" for six days a week and see what you end up with; and then do the same for the next week, and the next, and so on. The marvel is that they are as consistent as they are. The most we can expect is that the interludes shall be bright and cheerful between what we are really listening for-the time. —

D.

M.