RADIO PROGRAMMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1937, Page 6

RADIO PROGRAMMES.

The splendour of the radio m its catholicity and with its tireless servants—wave-space aad time—all reasonable tastes in music and entertainment should be satisfied—even onto that of "Just John." Your correspondent asks "How highbrow music comee to be more celtural than any other type of music." If le means by "highbrow music" the corn positions of the great masters sucTj ae Beethoven, Handel, Wagner, Gounod, Puccini, Elgar, Sullivan, etc., it is because their wqrks have stood the test of time—just as their peers in literature have; the survival of the fittest. Whilst tie supreme artists of harmony and thought have stayed—outside their domain there has always been the ebb and flow of restless, changeable expression of the groundlings—almost each decade has had its topical craze ti*t arises to popularity, then falls and passes. The past is strewn with these sequences—the inane, sentimental parlour ballad with diatonic accompaniment so beloved by our grandmothers, the paseion for yodelling that spelled our grandfather*, the smutty songs of musichall queens,, and lion comiques, the political patter parodies, all these have come and gone. To-day that musical emetic the crooner is kin?, although there are signs his rei<ra is ending. The accentuation of rhythm, labelled jazz, will probably stay with us; indeed, in modified form it ha* long been in music. We have always had "Just Johns" with *is, the "fans' , of topical fashion in music and other arts—even Shakespeare had to "tickle the ears of the groundlings." I congratulate Professor Shelley and the Government on the proposed conferva tori urn of arts, whilst we are grateful for the wide repertory oveYseas record* bring us. Vet it is N*ew~ Zealand's duty to create and add its quota, and a eonservatorium with a national orchestra will encourage and develop the talent for composition and executive expression which our people possess. HEXRY J. HAYWARP.