NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 10

NOTES OF THE DAY

Upon no other musician in this country could the King’s award of the Companionship of St. Michael and St. George have been more appropriately conferred than upon Mr. Robert Parker, whose name appears in the New Year honours list to-day. Mr. Parker is the doyen of the musical profession in,New Zealand, one of a small and enthusiastic company who in various parts of the country in earlier decades pioneered culture while their fellow-colonists were pioneering settlement. It is given to almost all to love music. Mr. Parker’s aim as a teacher was to foster that love, instead of atrophying it by over-emphasising the mechanical drudgery of the learning. He was amongst the first to advocate that the status of the teachers of music should be raised and their qualifications for recognition as professional men and women made more definite. Mr. Parker is more generally known by the public of to-day as a charming lecturer with a gifted literary style. In his prime he was one of our best-known conductors, whose rehearsals were in themselves a real education, and the music-loving public, especially of the pre-gramophone era, has been greatly indebted to him for introduction through him toj some of the finest works of the great composers. Mr. Parker has worked consistently for sound ideals in the teaching and practice of the art of music and his highest reward has been the satisfaction of seeing the leaven of these ideals permeating the community and raising the standard of public taste and appreciation.

New Zealand overseas is apt to have its identity obscured by the use of the word “Australasia,” according to Mr. J. M. Hyams, of Auckland, in published impressions of a recent world tour. “New Zealand is not known in Europe,” he says. “It is known as 'Australasia’.” Things cannot be quite as bad as all that, for this country, has been well advertised, not only through its products and organised publicity, but by our soldiers in every world war front from 1914 to 1918. At the same time, it is possible that wc do suffer through the proximity on the maps of such a comparatively small country as we are beside such a huge continent as Australia. In an earlier day both Canada and the United States suffered by the use of the group-name “North America,” while Canada was frequently referred to as “British North America.” The identities of the Latin American countries are somewhat obscured by the general group-name, “South American Republics.” It would seem that greater precision in text-book references and map-names is desirable. At any rate, one would think that “Australasia” could quite conveniently be dropped from Pacific nomenclature in maps and text-books.