CORRESPONDENCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18520, 18 March 1930, Page 13

CORRESPONDENCE

THE INSIDE OF BAND MUSIC. To the Editor ol the “ Tinv.hi Herald.” Sir.—At a recent social function our Timaru Municipal Bandmaster, Lieutenant Osborne, spoke impressively of the need for something more than technical perfection in playing a- piece of music: the performers must give of their own selves to the task until it becomes a medium of pure selfexpression. But this power of interpretation must be in the audience as well as in the performers; in the community as well as in the bandsmen. All must be in sympathy and capable of high appreciation. If Timaru is to win at the next contest, it will be because our citizens as a whole have risen to the need of something like that described in the following, which I have culled from a British paper (“The Inquirer” of January 18, 1930):

“Imagine a crowd several thousand strong, the majority drawn from the mining population of one of the Durham coalfields. They are rough in speech and manners, very ungainly in appearance. One would not associate them with culture at all. They are waiting for the connection with the Scotch express to bring home their local band, which is returning from London with the championship of the world and a thousand guinea trophy. When they arrive the bandsmen are seized and carried bodily up the main street to the Town Hall. There the men are put on their feet and commanded to play. And there, with their heads bared to the midnight sky, that great crowd of miners listens reverently to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. They listen for every note and phrase for they know it all by heart. And when it is finished, they melt away as though they had just left a church ”—I am, etc.

1C rr, , , CLYDE CARR 15 Trafalgar Street. March 13, 1930.