HARD ON AMATEURS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 6 August 1925, Page 9

HARD ON AMATEURS.

MECHANICAL MUSIC’S ADVANCE IS TASTE, IMPROVING. LONDON, July 25. In an interview with a representative of The Star, Mr. W. H. Squire, the ’cellist, declares that the amateur musician, and also musical evenings, are disappearing, being extinguished by the gramophone and broadcasting. “The piano and the fiddle will soon be its out-of-date in t-h 6 average British home as antimacassars and wax flowers,” he says. “Aesthetically, this is a healthy movement, as music will now he left to the. man who knows it is necessary, and, is prepared to spend his lifetime at the jobdfe Tobias Mattliay, the famous teacher, is resigning^the.professorship of pianoforte at the Royal Academy • of Music, following friction with,. Mr. J. B. MeEwen, the composer, who is..principal of the Academy i Th e . latter wanted Mattliay to teach a larger number of pupils, instead of those only who showed exceptional talent.-.. .. • ...... Mattliay, replying to W. H. Squire, declares that, the gramophone, the piano-player and broadcasting have imj proved the national appreciation of good music. The London suburbs, he says, were formerly full of amateur duffers whose efforts, were excruciating. Now they are full of musicians playing with something like" technical perfection ‘