LEARNING TO LISTEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, Page 5

LEARNING TO LISTEN

Sir-I was much interested by the letter from a correspondent who gave her opinion that a person will never become a lover of classical music by listening to radio records. While admitting that hearing a good orchestra is better than listening to a record, I think that she is going much too far and I would like to suggest the paradoxical saying that "sweeping statements are always wrong." Twenty years ago, I knew practically nothing of music. Few opportunities came my way. I never learned to play any instrument, and I did not know the difference between a concerto and a symphony until about 17 years ago. Of course, I knew glees and part-songs and I knew tonic sol-fa, but I knew nothing of classical music except Messiah, Since then, through the medium of the gramophone, I have acquired a love of classical music and can appreciate the best. At first, I will admit, some of it was just noise, but I liked much of it,

and I gradually came to understand it and love it. I now have a good collection of records, and they are the joy of my life. They include five of Beethoven’s symphonies, half a dozen of Mozart’s as well as the whole of his opera The Magic Flute. Besides those, I have works by Bach, Schubert, Berlioz, Dvorak, as well as short works by many other first-cass composers; and what is most important, I believe I can appreciate them, although I can’t talk much about their technicalities. There is another question, too. Where can anyone hear any but a few of the classical composers except on records? True, we have the National Orchestra, but how many of the great compositions can we hear from them? Two or three in a season perhaps, but there are many we can never thear. When was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony given in New Zealand? I hope your correspondent may revise her opinion and admit there may be something in radio or gramophone

music,

H.

O.

(Tawa Flat).