"THE MUSIC GOES ROUND"
Sir,-I would like to congratulate you heartily on your editorial of February 1, "The Music Goes Round." How right you are when you say that it is not so much the quality of the tune as the conditions under which one first hears it. Might I give as an example a melody of which I am exceedingly fond, Whenever I hear it, my mind goes . back fifty years to the very first time I heard it. It is that beautiful waltz by Waldteufel, "The Skaters." When I was about ten I heard this beautiful melody played as background music for the very first film ever shown at our local theatre. It was a scenic film of a trip down one of Germany’s many beautiful rivers, So whenever I hear the tune I immediately think of this occasion. And so it goes on: "The Lost Chord" always reminds me of Clara Butt, whom I first heard in London singing this lovely Sullivan composition; the "Those Were the Days" polka, which the NZBS feature in the oldtime dance programmes by Harry Davidson’s Dance Band, brings back memories of my first dancing lessons when as a small boy of ten, dressed in my Eton suit, I ploughed my way through my first polka to the strains of that lilting and never-to-be-forgotten melody. As you say, all catchy little tunes, but not exactly in the same category as Beethoven. I am not a musical student in the strict meaning of the expression, but I am a devoted lover of such melodies as those which emanated from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and many of the dear old musical comedies of a bygone day. I expect, too, that there are many others of my contemporaries who think the same. I know that I shall never forget those lovely melodies which I heard from the time I was about eight until that time when the First World War crashed about our heads, bringing with it the introduction of jazz and later on the more terrible music called swing. I am not decrying the latter type of music; it certainly must have something to commend it as so many of our younger generation go for it. I suppose it just boils down to this; "other days. other fancies."
FRANK
BROAD
(Takapuna),
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 5
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388"THE MUSIC GOES ROUND" New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 5
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