Prom Audience Preferences

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 14

Prom Audience Preferences

HE NZBS Concert Section has just completed its first sampling of Prom audience tastes, the thousands of papers that audiences at the last Prom season filled in have now been analysed, and the result shows an overwhelming preference for the established composers and for symphonies and _ concertos. Beethoven proved by far the most popular composer, with his Sixth Symphony (Pastoral) well above its rivals. The Egmont Overture was first choice in Christchurch, over the Saint-Saens Piano

Concerto No. 3, but second in Dunedin and Auckland to Haydn’s Violin Concerto in C and Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A respectively. In both Christchurch and Dunedin Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto was first choice and Tchaikovski’s Fantasy Overture, "Romeo and Juliet," second. But the latter was first (with Enesco’s Roumanian Rhapsody second) in Wellington. Auckland preferred the Grieg Piano Concerto to the Mozart Symphony No. 35 (Haffner), but Christchurch liked the Dvorak Sym-

phony No. 5 (the New World) better than the Grieg. In each city the composition of the programmes varied, but the reactions wefe surprisingly similar, with a preference for the known works. Many of the papers had comments, ranging from the dissatisfied to the enthusiastic, from flippant to serious, One notable feature was the number of comments praising the performers, especially the soloists, even when a work was well down in the order of preference, indicating that the choice was often more on the work than the performance. Some comments were extremely brief -"Thoroughly enjoyed the whole programme"; "More Gershwin"; "Still no Handel." One person expressed pleasure at hearing a "stimulating modern work," and hoped to hear one at every concert, while another asked for two-thirds of every Orchestra programme to be the "happier, more melodious music" of the Proms. One listener pleaded for open windows, another complained of a badly-tuned piano, but most gave praise for fine performances and made suggestions for future programmes, James Robertson’s comment was that the results will be valuable as an indication of public demand. It was a great help to find that audiences were so interested, and the new conductor should benefit by the poll, which showed a high standard of taste. Mr J. L. Hartstonge, of NZBS Concert Section, was a little diffident about drawing conclusions from what was at best only a representative sample of New Zealand audiences. "I am pleased," he said, "that a large proportion of the forms came from the younger section of the audience, because we are interested in their preferences, and they have shown evidence of a mature judgment. In Auckland, for example, the Mozart Violin Concerto came _ top against the less difficult Tchaikovski and Handel and the modern Facade Suite. "Many members of the audience went to a great deal of trouble to fill in the papers and return them, and we are ve grateful for their co-operation." he said: