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The ABC at 90 – Memories of a lifetime of music
Paul Cooke reminisces about the ABC
In October we celebrated the centenary of the founding of the BBC with an article written by Derek Parker, who created and introduced many programs for that broadcaster, and who has been a volunteer at 2MBS Fine Music Sydney for the last 20 years. This month we celebrate in music and words the 90th birthday of the ABC and, while I have never been an employee of theirs, I am the child of someone who played in the SSO from 1949 to the mid-1980s and have been much influenced by the ABC. My memories may inspire your own reminiscences.
The ABC came into being on 1 July 1932 with a concert program, introduced with live speeches from the Prime Minister and others, establishing it not only as a broadcaster intended to ‘serve all sections and to satisfy the diversified tastes of the public’, but also as a provider of ‘groups of musicians for the rendition of orchestral, choral and band music of high quality’ (initially a 50-piece orchestra cobbled together from various sources). The modern versions of the SSO and the other capital city orchestras didn’t come into being until after World War II.
On radio, I remember listening to In Quires and Places, featuring small choirs and ‘fine choral works’, and programs of chamber music, where I acquired a love of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms. But I also remember the non-classical music, on 2BL rather than 2FC: Arch McKirdy’s Relax with me, which was succeeded in 1972 by Ian Neil’s Music to midnight (in these programs I came across the ballads of Miles Davis and Ben Webster and the bossa nova of Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley); and Chris Winter’s Room to move, which often featured rock music with more than a hint of classical influence. My strongest memories are of live performances. There were open-air concerts held in Centennial Park, which were an initiative of conductor Eugene Goossens and had been running since 1950. There were schools concerts at the Town Hall, and youth concerts both there and in the newly opened Opera House. There was a marvellous concert featuring John Ogdon, Messiah rehearsals and Sunday night concerts where I sat behind the orchestra, and the fundraising concert in 1975 where the SSO was conducted by Danny Kaye, swapping baton for flyswat for The flight of the bumblebee.
And then there were the Proms, a concert series initiated by John Hopkins, held during summer from 1965 onwards, and very popular: Maria Prerauer wrote of the ‘long queues at 3 a.m., the pavement camping, … the overwhelming excitement … as the youngsters gathered to buy their tickets’. I was introduced to Grainger miniatures and Mahler symphonies, but most memorable were two performances which stood at the outer edges of classical music. One, in 1970, was Peter Sculthorpe’s Love 200, written to mark the bicentenary of Captain Cook’s landing at Kamay (Botany Bay) and featuring amplified singer and rock band. The other, in 1971, was a performance – or ‘realisation’ – by David Ahern’s AZ Music of a composition by Cornelius Cardew. Apparently, the audience rioted. I don’t remember, I must have been transfixed by the music.
Many thanks to the ABC for providing so many people with opportunities to be engaged with and enthused by music over the past 90 years – and for feeding the desire for quality local broadcasting. It is a pleasure for 2MBS Fine Music Sydney to share the airwaves with them!
