Urchins And The Classics

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 37, 22 March 1935, Page 25

Urchins And The Classics

"WYIOGENES THE YOUNGER" in ‘Thoughts from My Tub," in ‘Musical Opinion," is convinced that the present interest in music is widespread and geriuine. He says: ‘(Whether it be the cumulative result of a decade of broadcasting or some other influence, or combination of influences, the fact remains that music is becoming quite a normal topic of conversation amongst people of all sorts and conditions, Nor is it confined to the upper stratum of society. I remember some. years ago mentioning in some article or other that I had heard a small urchin in a backyard whistling, not the latest popular dance tune, but ‘"Where’er You Walk." To-day this would hardly be worthy of comment. Did I not read somewhere about a taxidriver at one of last summet’s promenade concerts remarking sagely to his companion, apropos a Sibelius Symphony, ‘Trust ’Enery to bring out the lytent Tschaikovsky’? Are we not informed on good authority that the most severe critics of the Halle Orchestra are the Manchester Corporation’s tramwaymen? And was it not only the other day that Professor Percy Buck told a conference about a bus conductor who gave a small boy his penny back because he was humming ‘the good old Unfinished’ ?"’ TLEZSI A