SINS OF OMISSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26117, 2 April 1946, Page 4

SINS OF OMISSION

The claim has been made by a speaker at the annual meeting of the Otago Society of Musicians that the cause of music was entitled to receive more generous publicity from the local newspapers. The merits of such a claim must be more apparent to music-lovers than to the general public. The function of the newspaper is to cater as far as possible for the needs and interests of all sections of the community’. That function can be performed only within the limits of the amount of space available, and at the present time this is very restricted. Claims might be advanced not only in the interests of music, but of a variety of other subjects, but the broad principle which has been enunciated must be upheld to their exclusion. This must be a matter of regret for any newspaper which is conscious of its public responsibility, •as well as to thos’e sections of the community which feel that they have been denied full recognition. Actually it can be contended that, apart from the lack of a regular feature column devoted to local musical activities and to music in general, the music-lover has been treated with every consideration. Musical instruction in schools, for example, has been consistently brought before the public and the merited interest aroused in it has spread f&r beyond the confines of the city. The serious musical broadcasts of each week are discussed —and the influence of this is testified to by our correspondence columns—and all public musical functions receive informed consideration. It may be recalled also that gramophone and other musical topics were in pre-war days the subject of a column in this newspaper, but the cessation of the arrival of records and of publications for review, as well as the restrictions imposed by the war, brought about the omission of this feature. It can be advanced that the musical organisations of the city still have some responsibility to carry out, to use the words of a speaker at the meeting, “ our duty to the community as a whole by furthering the appreciation of music.” In all such organisations there always exists the necessity to fight against a narrowing of outlook and the tendency to degenerate into more or less esoteric cliques. The society’s concert last year of works by local composers was a highly creditable effort. The luncheon hour concerts represented an excellent idea admirably executed. It is stimulating, too, to consider the recent endeavours to arrange concerts which would bring the work of student musicians more before the public. The suggestion can be made that there could be a greater use of the facilities for the study of music at the University of Otago. The equipment which is here at the disposal of the public is extensive and valuable, and a greater emphasis- on this fact and on the ways in which access can be obtained to it might produce beneficial results.