PAYING THE PIPER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 8

PAYING THE PIPER

S a kind of codicil to his marathon year of illustrated lectures on music, Owen Jensen left a most stimulating talk behind him, which I heard last week from 2YC, called "Musical Ancestor Worship." It made excellent sense. His view was that of Aaron Copland, who complained in a recent book of essays that serious music had been turned in the last 50 years into a museum, with about 50 works standing like stuffed fowls of well-known contour, while the living birds of music make their new and exciting flights in the aery blue of almost total indifference. Yes, indeed; this needs to be said again and again. Our interest is largely and disastrously antiquarian; "give us something we know!" is the constant cry, which may be better than a kick in the pants, but permanently lames the creative muSician. And it is on our shoulders that the responsibility rests; we call the tune and so can pay the piper. And if we want the piper to give us the tunes for our times, then we must ask him to play them. Mr Jensen had hard but admirable things to say about canned music, and he gave three excellent examples; the public address system ersatz to which children march into school after the morning assembly (Mr Jensen recalled the noble simplicity of his march into school to a bugle and drum); the syrupy sound of recorded bells with which many churches woo their congregations, and the bad taste of Beethoven played as a background to mastication in smart restaurants. More concerts. then, more bands, more dance.music: More made music, in short: more shared music, more listening.