153,800 People Can Be Wrong

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 25, 2 December 1938, Page 3

153,800 People Can Be Wrong

(‘*Record’s"’ Music Critic.) gut of an urban area population of 154,400 people, some 600 Wellington people attended the first Promenade concert of the Wellington Symphony Orchestra held in the Town Hall. Fair proportion of the other 153,800, no doubt, were craning their necks in adoration of large shadows of overpaid cinema actors and actresses with faces like the colour of anaemic Gorgonzola cheese. In the Town Hall the faithful 600 listened to a first-rate popular concert by reali flesh-and-blood musicians who are considerably underpaid. From the point of view of numbers, the first "Promenade" concert was not a huge success; was not either a failure. From the point of view of music, the first "Prom" concert in New Zealand was a remarkable achievement. Carefully chosen programme included William Tell overture, Tschaikowsky’s 1812 overture and BKigar’s Pomp and Circumstance march. Programme may have been small beer for -musical highbrows but was meat as well as drink to the man in the street. Stiff boiled shirts gleamed here and there from the balcony. Downstairs people in mixed garb, finding themselves for the first time in New Zealand able to smoke and move freely about at a concert, were for a time almost furtive. Self-consciousness wore off after a little, the buffet assisting the process, and the evening ended in a spirit near camaraderie. Not the least spent in this icepreaking process was the orchestra itself, which threw itself wholeheartedly into the job of entertaining its public and brilliantly succeeded. Parts of the programme were nothing short of nerve-thrilling, especially when the great organ joined in. Curious result of the first "Prom" was new feeling of intimacy between audience, conductor Leon de Mauny and the orchestra itself. This extended to assisting artists as well. Final verdict was that 153,000 people who did not go missed more than they knew.