No Programme Invented Can Please Everyone

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 10, 15 September 1933, Page 14

No Programme Invented Can Please Everyone

To the Editor. Sir,-To an observant reader there is something of the ludicrous jn many of the letters printed each week in your journal. I refer more especially to those letters written by: listeners who spend the first half of their space in scolding most severely those people who dare to criticise the programmes provided by the stations, and who spend the rest of their time in little grumbles of their own. Nothing can be more certain, than that no programme eyer invented by man can please everybody in its entirety. Human tastes must differ, and al] human preferences must be, to a certain extent, mutually antagonistic, This is, I largely . due. to the in- all. listeners’

musical education. There will always be the classic v, jaz argument until such time as all people possess good musical education.

Those who vilify the classics as dull, monotonous and boring simply do not u»derstand them. ‘They are not educated up to them, Jazz, of course, has.its uses, as does light fiction. Both provide relax~ ation. It is quite possible to enjoy both jazz and classica] music, but each has a separate purpose. In this respect I have a suggestion to offer. In my opinion it is an aesthetic crime to have classical items and jazz in, close juxtaposition. One destroys the atmosphere of the other; both are necessary, but should not clash, I. suggest that the Australian scheme be followed, and when classical items are given to. have this class of music for 20 minutes: or so, and then an equal period of some other musie in contrast. If all programmes were like this and not just a mixture of warring items, I think the result would be found to please everybody. -I am, ete.,

FIAT LUX

Thames,