The Saving of Queen's Hall. The news that Queen's Hall is "saved "- to the extent that the British Broadcasting Cor- poration has been able to arrange for a season of Promenade Concerts there for six weeks beginning on August 13, under the direction of SIR HmiRY WOOD, with his old orchestra and something more-must give general satisfaction. During the winter a series of Symphony Concerts is also proposed. They are to be twelve in number, but are apparently to be changed in character from the series of Saturday afternoon concerts which Londoners have enjoyed for so many years. They will probably be given on Friday evenings, and a number of British conductors will take part in directing them. How far this latter scheme will fill the place of the old cannot be foreseen at present. What we have to hope is that it will at any rate fill a useful place and become acceptable to a large public. There must necessarily be many people to whom Saturday afternoon at Queen's Hall had become an insti- tution, and who will not be able to benefit equally by Friday evenings. It must be remem- bered, however, that the British Broadcasting Corporation, in taking charge of these activities has in mind primarily an audience which is not one of concert-goers and the great majority of whom are never likely to enter Queen's Hall. The first duty of the Corporation is to cater for the absent audience, and it is only because it takes a liberal view of its function that the direct listener is provided for at all in its schemes. It is hoped that the two interests may be served, but they are not the same. Experience has shown now that what is desirable as part of the larger plan of the B.B.C.'s programme may not fit the needs of the music-lover who seeks his orchestral music in the concert room, and vice versa. And if the two interests should clash the support of the B.B.C. would necessarily go to the side of its own clients. It must not be assumed, therefore, that all the difficulties of providing London with a per- manent orchestra are solved by the new arrange- ment. But the solution is materially advaneed by the fact that the undignified tussle between the interests of Queen's Hall and of broadcast- ing has ended in the conquest of that party which has shown the wider vision. That the B.B.C. means to do well by the direct listeuier is proved by its undertaking to restore the nightly Promenade Concerts through part of August and September, and by the fact that its first care was to secure the services of the man who has made those concerts what they are. The thirty-seven nightly Promenade Concerts are very much more than can be utilized for broadcasting purposes, though less than SIR HENRY WOOD'S audiences have had annually for the last thirty years. Obviously the question how far the direct listener to music can be con- sidered in further plans will depend on the dis- position he shows to make full use of what is given him now. During the last season, while the inmminent abandonment of the whole enter- prise of the Queen's Hall Orchestra was being loudly deplored, there were still empty seats in every part of the house, especially in the more expensive parts, at each of the Saturday Sym- phony Concerts. In eountries which boast a larger and better educated musical public than we have here, broadcasting has been welcomed as a means of giving at least some taste of the music to the large numbers of people who can- not get into, or cannot afford a seat in, the over- crowded concert halls. There is no fear there of the concert hall being emptied by the wireless. No musical person imagines that listening to an orchestra by its means is the same thing as listening to it in the hall where it plays, even though, deprived of the real thing, he may find great compensation in wireless transmission. If there are enough people in London who realize that a fine orchestra is a thing worth taking the trouble actually to hear, no matter how efficient their loud-speakers may become and how allur- ing their armchairs at home may be, then the B.B.C. will no doubt be prepared to do all in its power to maintain and to extend their oppor- tunities. But Queen's Hall, or its equivalent, can only be saved if the music-loving public shows a sense of its value by going with enthusiasm to its concerts. The Saving of Queen's Hall.