ORGAN RECITALS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 240, 5 July 1920, Page 5

ORGAN RECITALS

Sir.VFalr Play" is concerned about the possibility of losing his "Saturday night sane and educative entertainment." Ho may bo ablo to digest tho heavy mental pabulum Mr. Pilge provides easily and comfortably, but tho fact that "those 15,600 people" ho mentions are practically the samo 300 to 400 over and over again jiroves that the, btlior 80,000 odd in and around Welling--ton find it much (oo heavy for thorn and so they stay away. Did "Fair Play" attend the Lemnro recitals in our Town Hall? If so, ho must have unlived lliat there was hardly a seat to siiaro at any of them. (And most of idem, if I remember correctly, cost moro Ihiiii Ikl. and Is.) Mr. Page lias been here a number of years nnd yet can induce no move than tho usual privileged three or four hundred to attend at those prices. Then surely something must be wrong. Mighty fugues, sonatas nnd other robustious combinations of ii«'ci'il:iii( sounds executed with a great display of manual gymnastics, alias

technique, appeal to the very few: music of tuneful. melody and rhythm well played appeals to the- hundreds. Mr. Page persists with tho former, and 60 the 2000 empty seats every night. Just why the. hall, tho organ and the city organist should continue, to bo at tho disposal of the "privileged" 400 week after week at tho cost of hundreds of | pounds a year, beats me and many | others. Saturday .afternoons should suit thorn just as well and would leave the hall free at night for the benefit of the less highly musically cultured section of the communitv,—l am, etc., ADVANCE REASONABLY.