LIGHT MUSIC
Sir,-Permit me ,to endorse the remarks of F. M. Price (Listener, January 28). My wife and I-and many of our friends and relations-are also middlebrows, and like all the varieties of music that Mr, Price has enumerated. Grand Opera is about | the upper limit of our music appreciation. We can stand a little of the "great masters’; most of them have written at least one or two brief and tuneful pieces, but the bulk of it-well, it has no appeal to us, and soon becomes tiresome. As for all the. jazz, swing, boogiewoogie, "hot music,’ crooners, groaners, howlers and screamers, it is just horrible noise, and to describe it as "light music" is unfair to the many listeners who detest such trash. I have been a subscriber to The Listener for a good many years. I enjoy it for itself; there is something refreshingly original about its literary pages, but as a guide to listening-well, it just isn’t. it is possible to put on a half-hour or so of "middlebrow" stuff occasionally (in the evening, when one has time to listen) and to indicate it clearly in the proeramme. By the way, why cannot we have some Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes? Yes, I know, there is occasionally a "Sullivan selection’-bits and pieces from several of the operas, strung together and played toc fast, in a perfunctory manner, apparently by an orchestra in a hurry to get to the pub before 6.0 p.m. or something. But Sullivan’s music, good as it is; is incomplete without Gilbert’s clever libretto. You may have records of words and music, but if not it would not be impossible to organise a company of our best amateurs and produce the operas in the
studio from time to time. It should not even be very expensive; as. there.would be no costumes, scenery, theatre Hire or travelling expenses. There is a whole generation (nearly two generatidns). who have seldom 6r never seen or heard G.. and S. propérly presented. Anyhow, there is) a@*stiggestion, for what is ‘it worth. : ~
V. C.
CURTIS
(Christchurch):
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550304.2.12.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 5
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346LIGHT MUSIC New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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