ENCOURAGEMENT OF MUSIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11800, 1 November 1901, Page 4

ENCOURAGEMENT OF MUSIC.

Mild as is the encouragement to public band performances, decided upon by our City Council, i f is a step in the right direction. Some may think that it would have been more, in accord with our civic dignity to have paid outright from the civic purse the very moderate amount asked by the city bands. But as the Council may probably have to provide a considerable part of the amount under its guarantee we may thus become gradually accustomed to the idea that the providing of a certain amount of public music is as much a municipal function as the planting of shade trees — which ought not to be poisoned. But whether the small amount required is contributed by private subscriptions of " not less than one penny," or provided, out of the city treasury, it is very certain that it will be exceedingly well invested. It has often been asserted that colonial cities are more pleasure-loving than those of Britain, but we have been set by many British cities a laudable example in the encouragement of music, that pleasurable and ennobling art. Both in British and in many colonial cities are to be found not merely subsidised bands, but grand public organs, which latter instrument we may hope to see Auckland become possessed of when our City Hall is built. Meanwhile, it is something to know that the action of the Council has facilitated the arranging of these park band performances which have hitherto given pure and unadulterated pleasure to many thousands. We trust that the influence of the modes* support secured to them will be to induce such rivalry and emulation between the bands as will spur them to renewed effort towards greater excellence. Rivalry of this sort is not only good for every man engaged in it, but good for all who come within its reach. For the effect of public band performances by no means ends with the passing pleasure of the listeners. The better they are the more they inspire those whose latent musical faculties they rouse to cultivate an art of which more good and less bad has been said than of any other, and which is certainly the most influential in weaning the young and thoughtless from coarse and debasing pleasures.