PROGRAMME DETAIL
Sir,-In common with other readers of your esteemed journal, I have often wondered why so much of your programme space-is wasted every week in superfluous information about musical items. Week after week we read, for example, that performances are scheduled of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, in D major, Op. 61; Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16; Beethoven’s Sonata Appassionata in F minor, Op. 57; and similarly excessive references to the Violin Concertos of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovski, and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, etc., etc. Every musician knows that Beethoven, Tchaikovski, Mendelssohn, and Brahms wrote only one violin concerto each; Grieg and Schumann only a single piano concerto. Therefore, why is it deemed necessary to add these redundant details about keys and "ops"? Musical readers are usually aware of them, while the general run of readers neither knows nor cares whether a particular piece is in latchkey or Lambton Quay, and probably, is much more interested in the productof hops than of "ops." What your readers really do wish to learn, in connection with such advertised items. is the name of the performer. Let me suggest an amended announce-
ment such as this, for instance: Beet‘hoven’s Violin Concerto (Heifetz); or Grieg’s Piano Concerto (Eileen Joyce). With due respect, I think this would be an improvement on your present system.
L. D.
AUSTIN
(Wellington).
(Mr Austin will find that these details are commonly given‘in printed programmes. They are given, for example, in the Radio Times, even when the reference is to the Third Programme. But he will also find that, though not wholly excluded, they now figure . much less frequently in broadcast announcements, the assumption being that those listeners who for any reason want them have looked or can look in The Listener. And in The Listener ‘it is simpler and safer to follow the convention without exceptions than to make exceptions, say, of the unique works of any kind in a composer’s catalogue.-Ed.)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19581128.2.18.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 1006, 28 November 1958, Page 11
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323PROGRAMME DETAIL New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 1006, 28 November 1958, Page 11
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