EXIT THE MEDIOCRE MUSICIAN

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 48, 27 February 1933, Page 3

EXIT THE MEDIOCRE MUSICIAN

The change during, recent years- in matters musical was referred to by Mr. F. S. Pope at the annual meeting of the Wellington Harmonic Society. In his young days, said Mr. Pope, quite a large number of young people used to do something musical. A.t that time there was very little really good music to be heard in Wellington, and for, music of the,-highest class they had to depend upon the rare visits of great artists. But now, everywhere and at any time, good music was readily accessible to all through the gramophone and radio, with the result that the local amateur no longer desired to vaunt his or her own mediocre performances. As people become more and more educated to an appreciation of good: music, in like degree would the amateur performer recede into1 the background. This was a serious position and would ultimately mean that the only performers_ left would be those who came within the category of artists. Hence the. desirableness of a body like the Harmonic Society which tended to prevent the extinction of the umateur performer.-