Evening star., 1935-12-08

America to their medium because 1t rea
city sophisticate, the simple rurallst.
miscellaneous elements who live farE
removed from the concert hall.
Though nearly every survey of audi
ence taste continues to reveal a predi-
lection for lighter music and the ca
cophony of the dance band, with vari-
ETY. and comedy shows far up in the
lead, it is a gratifying fact to real
music lovers that operas, symphonies
and chamber music are winning more
and more favor with the rank and file
audience.
The result has been that hardly any
great musical aggregation and very
few major artists of the concert hall
are today without their regular radio
outlets. national network or local. Nor
does a days radio schedule go by with
out a fair proportion of the better
music-music that is enjoying such
increasing popularity, particularly since
the new high-f1delity radios Have been
introduced to reproduce it so faith
fully, that the radio people are begin
ming to think and talk about audience
tastes in superlatives.
GONG hits die quickly after a few
months on the radio, but good
music goes on forever, and even the
most cynical are beginning to view
radios hourly outpourings with more
favor as they are enabled to hear more
and more of the kind of broadcastS
they want. No longer does radio cater
merely to the "10-year-old mind" but
it apparently has gained a wholesome
respect for American lStenership at
large, as evidenced by the increasing
amount of good music being offered
both on sponsored commercially and
sustaining mon commercially pro-
grams.
Consider the networks, as distin-
euished from the individual stations
which they serve and which devote
considerable amount of their program
days to local programs whose quality
often depends upon the size and cul-
tural level of their respective COM
munities. The National Broadcasting
Co., with its two networks, and the
Columbia BroadcaSting System, which
are Nation wide in scope, both report
that 1885 has marked a new milestone
In musical upnft.
Because their audiences as whole
like it-and the networks are keenly
sensitive to audience reaction-N. B. C.
is not only resuming the Metropolitan
Opera broadcasts Saturday afternoons
direct from the stage, but its schedule
now includes, generally as one-hour
programs, the Boston Symphony,
Rochester Philharmonic, Radio City
Music Hall Symphony, Minneapolis
Symphony, Erno Rapee's Symphony,
Cleveland Orchestra and the N. B. c.
Strong Symphony under Frank Black.
On February next the Pittsburgh
Symphony will also start series.
q B. S. LISTS as current regular
' offerings the New York Philhar-
mcnic concerts, heard two hours every
Sunday afternoon; Victor Kolar's
(Ford) Sunday Evening Hour, the
Curtis Institute Orchestra and cham
ber music and singers, Welden String
Quartet from Cleveland, William
Days (Atwater KENT Orchestra, Gin
cinnati Conservatory Orchestra and
the Portland, Oreg Junior Symphony
Both networks carry the highly
popular Army and Navy bands on
regular schedules, and each has its
coterie of noted solo artists, like Law
renee Tibbett, Grace Moore, Lily Pons,
Greta Stueckgold, John Charles Thorn
as, Nino Martini and others who ap-
pear on regular programs as distin-
guished from guest programs. In ad-
dition, as occasion warrants, pick-ups
are staged of other major symphonic
and other aggregations from various
cities in the United States and from
Europe's musical capitals.
EVER wondered what programs the
listening audience at large likes
best? OF course you have heard of
the results of door-to-door surveys and
fan mail counts and the like, but the
statistical wizards say they are far
from foolproof.
Now comes plan that works with
literally clock-like precision. As a
matter of fact it is clock-mechanism