OUR DUMMY ORGAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 6

OUR DUMMY ORGAN.

It is time that public attention should be drawn to our dummy organ. Though dumb, it is a magnificent instrument. Its architect was a clever musician, and the writer is privileged to have been his friend. But that lovely instrument is dumb. Why is this? Is it because public taste has been diverted from its message •by the clamour of other vociferations? I say "No!" most emphatically. The thinking and feeling public is ever enthralled, and ever will be, by a great instrument which articulates in modern terms the psychic substance of curfent thought and feelini. Therefore the Town Hall organ is not dumb" because of the general public's alleged "degeneration of taste." Why is that organ dumb? It must be obvious that this dumbness is caused by lack of a master organist. And why is there' no master-organist? Because the C'ity Couricil has no aesthetic vision and will not offer a workman's pay for a. master workman's service. The writer quite recognises the council's difficulty. The orthodox church musician is hopeless for Town Hall purposes simply because he is tethered to a fixed point. A~man is required who; can play with versatile intelligence at all civic functions —a man who can jazz "Lest We Forget" and solemnise "Yes, We Have No Bananas." When the Auckland City Council finds such a'man the TowiuHall organ will become articulate, not before. VIA MEDIA.