AN IDEA GONE WRONG

Radio Record, 5 June 1936, Page 7

AN IDEA GONE WRONG

WN the early ‘twenties, when the League of Nations was the bright hope of a chas-

tened world and Mussolini was just a

man ‘‘who was doing a lot for Italy, some citizens of Wellington decided on

| a memorial to the Great War-a memorial that would be national in character and name. And so the Wel-

lington War Memorial Carillon Society was formed, a body that was instrumental in

persuading the ‘Government to grant £15,000 toward the cost of erecting a tower for the housing of a set’

of bells. The total cost of the scheme was somewhere in the neighbourhood of £30,000. "The main ideas governing the gift and installation of the Wellington War Memorial Carillon," says a booklet published four years ago, "are that it shall be regarded essentially as a memorial to the New ZeaJanders who’ gave their lives in the Great War, that it shall commemorate their deeds by the giving of special recitals on the anniversaries of the principal engagements in which they fell, and, the carillon being the greatest instrument in existence for the cultivation of the folk song and national and religious airs, it shall help to rekindle among New Zealanders the love of old England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and of their own land, and the ideal for which so many New Zealanders died-the triumph of right over wrong, and the establishment of peace and goodwill among men." Brave words-but how lamentably wrong only the people of Wellington can truthfully say! Far from being a national memorial, it is not even a city memorial, but a memorial _that confers its benefits on a few people liv-. ing about the foot of Wellington’s Mount Cook. "T’ve heard thusic from Wellington’s carillon described as a ‘tin-can recital,’." said a visiting musician to the "Radio Record." "As a means of disseminating

music, it lacks one of the main features-continuity. The Wellington winds see to that. In fact, from a climatic point of view, a \worse city for a carillon could scarcely have been chosen. At best, the carillon can only send. more or less disconnected sounds

~@ over the countryside, sounds blown hither and thither by _a good southerly ‘buster.’

y "Tf it were not for the sentimental ‘value ‘of the

’ carillon-and ‘Tam ‘not intending in any way to hurt the feelings of ‘those good

P people who gave bells and ‘ ‘money in memory of'the ‘fallen -it would: be better’ to scrap the whole thing. As‘ it is now, -: it merelv interferes with

the frontage of ‘one of the ' finest buildings in Néew Zealand-the new National Art Gallery and War Museum,"

"I don’t know of another carillon on this side of the world," said a well-known Wellington citizen, who is also interested in music. "That fact alonethat cities like Melbourne and Sydney would not consider carillons as a fotm of memorial-should. have influenced the people "who: advocated a memorial carillon here. To me, the music from the campanile is definitely unmusical. "If there were a band rotunda on the same site, with seats and pleasant surroundings, the slope below to the Art Gallery could be one of the most popular spots in Wellington on a Sunday afternoon, and it would give considerable encouragement to our brass bands. ‘Actually, there’s nothing wrong with the carillon, which, when: heard: in ~Hyde Park, London, before shipment to New Zealand, was considered by experts to be one of the finest in the world. But the pleasant grassy spaces of Hyde Park are rather different to the windswept slopes of a Wellington hillside. Anyway, under the best of conditions, carillon music is just a novelty-not real music at all. "Perhaps it rather savours of crying over spilt milk to suggest what might have been done with the money several years after the carillon has been installed, but, if music it was to be, how much better could the money have been spent in helping existing musical societies. Puttine the expenditure down at £30000: interest at

four per cent. would have yielded £1200 a year. If this money had been equally divided between the various musical interests-brass bands, say, and symphony orchestras and choral societies-how much greater would have been the henefits !" soo

Wellington’s. War Memorial Carillon, which is .condemned by critics.in this article, will be on the air from 2YA on Sunday next, June 7, at 3 o’clock. It would. be interesting to see if readers agree with the views expressed here.