TASTE IN MUSIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22319, 17 January 1936, Page 3

TASTE IN MUSIC

PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS TALKING FILMS AND WIRELESS A visitor to Auckland who is leaving for Australia next week from Wellington is Miss Catherine Scott, of London. Miss Scott arrived in New Zealand by the Mariposa in November and has spent most of her time visiting the scenic attractions of the North and South Islands. She said that she was' most impressed by the Milford Sounds and the Waitomo Caves. "I came out from London through America," said Miss Scott, "and can assure you that if the Waitomo Caves of New Zealand were in America they would be known the world over. As it is one hears very little about them on the other side of the world." Miss Scott, who is spending an eight months' vacation in America, New Zealand and Australia, is a prominent teacher of music in London, specialising in piano, violin and organ playing; also in voice-production. She lias studied in Berlin, Italy and Vienna under many well-known teachers and is a member of the London Academy of Music. The visitor said that it would be interesting to know what percentage of the world's wireless listeners tuned in to what was known as a "classical" programme, compared with the percentage of those who preferred the dance music section. England and Germany, she thought, were the only countries where true music was understood and appreciated. The Welsh, of course, were great music lovers, but seemed to prefer their national songs to the music of other countries. She thought that the introduction of talking pictures had had a tremendous influence upon the popular opinion of music. While pictures were silent the people depended upon the legitimate stage, visiting operatic singers and instrumentalists for their music. At that time, too, the gramophone was more popular, and the better class of music was more widely recorded than dance or lighter music. With the advent of the talking pictures, however, came the opportunity to produce musical comedies on a large scale. For some time, too, tlie producers seized every opportunity to introduce a song whether good, bad, or indifferent, or whether it was incidental to the story or not. This, of course, had affected the legitimate stage considerably, but Miss Scott thought that there were now signs of improvement in that direction. The producers of talking pictures, she considered, were beginning to realise that music on a higher plane could be brought to the public most success-

fully. She believed that in the future the talking pictures would be used more as a medium for bringing to a public that otherwise would not hear them artists in real opera from Covent Garden and other operatic houses. "I think that the middle generation, not the older people or the very young ones, but those who constitute the youth of to-day, are the least musically minded," said Miss Scott. She added that to appreciate good music people must be educated to know music. To-day there was less actual musical instruction than there had been for many years, and she thought that the wireless, because of its increasing popularity and efficiency, and its decreasing price, would play an important part in the musical instruction of the young people. In. Miss Scott's opinion, the "crooner" and the blatant "jazz band had affected the public's love of good music. Most people, however, realised that a good song or, in fact, any song, could be well and properly sung, and that it was possible to find an excellent dance band that was not merely a clashing of sound, hut musical and rythmical. She thought that whenever there was a singer or an instrumentalist reallv worth hearing most people would not be found listening to anythin" second-rate. There was, on the other hand, a very large number of people who talked a great deal about music, but who failed to support it. Miss Scott was confident, however, that the future, as far as music was concerned, was very promising. She did not think that the wireless _ should usurp tho place of the piano in the home, but that it should augment it as a medium for pleasure and insrucMiss Scott, who arrived in Auckland from Rotorua this week, left last evening for Wellington.