Orchestras Regaining Lost Popularity

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 190, 13 August 1936, Page 10

Orchestras Regaining Lost Popularity

LESS “CANNED MUSIC”

After a four months’ visit to England and tho United States, Mrs. Sydney Warde, of Sydney, passed through Auckland by tho Mariposa cn routo to Australia, states the New Zealand Herald. She is accompanied by her daughter, Miss Roma Warde. Mrs said that her visit abroad had convinced her that the orchestra was regaining much of its lost popularity in both countries. She was, in fact, greatly surprised at the number of orchestras employed in London, both by day and by night, in theatres, in restaurants and cabarets. Many of the larger hotels in London any New York employed their own orchestras, said Mrs Warde. The Continental type of tearoom or restaurant was very popular in the United States. There were also a great many roof-gardens and open-air restaurants. Mrs Warde considered that the Americans showed a great deal of taste, originality, and ingenuity in the appointments and designing of their cafes and restaurants. Mrs Wardd was surprised to find, so many women in orchestras, although the purely women’s orchestras were still regarded somewhat as a novelty. In both London and New York the old prejudice against women in orchestras was dying out gradually. The argument that women had less staying power than men for orchestral playing was losing its strength. It was thought, too, that-, women possessed a little more enthusiasm for their work than men. American conductors were not as prejudiced against women players as were the British conductors, said Airs Warde, although Sir Thomas Beecham was the first conductor to include women in his orchestra in London.

In London the women playing m orchestras were chosen only for stringed instruments and occasionally for the piano. On the other hand, she had seen women in American orchestras playing tho flute, clarinet, saxophone, and even the trombone as well as those who played the harp and violin. Guitars were favourite instruments for women in the United States.