how ABC music became more than broadcasting

213 Pages·2012·1.93 MB·English

by  David Garrett

University of Wollongong
Research Online
University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections
2012
The accidental entrepeneur - how ABC music
became more than broadcasting
David Garrett
University of Wollongong
Recommended Citation
Garrett, David, The accidental entrepeneur - how ABC music became more than broadcasting, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Faculty of
Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 2012. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3680
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THE ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR
How ABC Music Became More than Broadcasting
by
DAVID GARRETT, B.A. (Hons) Sydney

A thesis submitted in fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
from the
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
FACULTY OF CREATIVE ARTS
2012
Certification

I, David J. Garrett, declare that this thesis, submitted in
fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of
Philosophy, in the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of
Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise
referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been
submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution.

David J. Garrett
30 March 2012
Dedication
To the memory of my father, John Garrett (1920–2011)
who did not live quite long enough to read this,
but who gave me the gifts of history and music.
Abstract

The Australian Broadcasting Commission was established as a broadcaster but also
assumed an entrepreneurial role as a founder and manager of orchestras and a
presenter of concerts. For many years it was Australia’s major national provider of
professional orchestras and of concerts.
This doctoral thesis investigates the origins of the ABC in the history of Australian
music and Australian broadcasting, and explores its involvement in orchestral
management and public concert giving. It poses the question whether this dimension
of the ABC’s activities was inevitable, and it traces the development of this role
through the personalities and cultural aspirations of those who shaped the ABC’s
origins and early years. It provides a detailed study of the steps in the evolution of
orchestras and concerts connected with the ABC. Existing histories deal with the
ABC primarily as a broadcaster.
My sources include the personal papers of founders of the ABC, including Herbert
Brookes and William James Cleary, the latter supplemented by oral history
interviews with Cleary’s daughter. For ABC General Manager Sir Charles Moses, I
was given access to personal papers and recorded interviews, both in private hands.
My research focus is institutional, emphasising policy and administrative matters.
Reference to Commission deliberations and records of ABC management brings
considerable reinterpretations. Rather than a gradual and uninterrupted growth of
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ABC orchestras and concerts, uncertainty is revealed about what musical policy
should be. I show that there were divisions within the Commission, broadly on
Melbourne-Sydney lines, about music policy, but also complex organisational and
personal dynamics.
I argue that much in the early hesitations and then the emergence of a new music
policy in the ABC in 1932–4 was due to Brookes and Heinze protecting the interests
of the orchestra with which they were associated, the Melbourne Symphony
Orchestra. The policy they persuaded the Commission to adopt was that the ABC
should collaborate with existing orchestral organisations, using its studio orchestras
to augment other orchestras, in return for broadcast rights to their concerts.
The thesis argues that this uncertainty about orchestras did not hold back the ABC’s
increasing commitment to concerts, which brought complaints of unfair competition
from private entrepreneurs. Its concert activity led the ABC to commit, in 1935–6, to
enlarging its studio orchestras and making them the core of symphonic concert
orchestras under ABC management.
I demonstrate that the rationalisation of ABC policy happened under the
Chairmanship of Cleary from June 1934 on, and under Cleary’s protégé Charles
Moses, whom he persuaded the Commission to appoint General Manager in 1935. A
legacy of these two men was the ABC symphony orchestras and the ABC Concert
Division in the form in which they remained a major commitment of the ABC for the
next sixty years. I show how the leadership of Cleary and Moses, and especially their
inspiring passion for classical music, fostered high standards, and encouraged the
ABC’s entrepreneurial development of its audience for concerts. The model these
men provided influenced other managers, while the organised bureaucratic systems
which became characteristic of the ABC were pioneered in concert management.
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Table of Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................i
Table of Contents..................................................................................iii
Acknowledgements...............................................................................iv
Introduction............................................................................................1
Chapter 1: 1932 – Radio, Government and the Commission.................13
Chapter 2: The Cracks Appear..............................................................36
Chapter 3: The Great Divide – Culture, Politics and Sydney-
Melbourne Rivalry......................................................................53
Chapter 4: Melbourne Ascending..........................................................72
Chapter 5: The Chairman and the Son He Never Had –
Cleary, Moses, and ABC Music..................................................96
Chapter 6: Our Orchestral Plans – Orchestras and the
ABC, 1932–36...........................................................................121
Chapter 7: The Triumph of Subscription: The ABC Concerts
Scheme......................................................................................157
Conclusion.........................................................................................181
Bibliography.......................................................................................186
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the University of Wollongong, for providing me with a
University Postgraduate Award (for three years from Autumn Session 2006,
extended by six months to 31 July 2009). I thank my supervisors: Professor Andrew
Schultz, whose interest in my project combining music and history attracted me to
the University of Wollongong and its Faculty of Creative Arts, and who supervised
the early stages of this thesis; Associate Professor David Vance, who was my
principal supervisor and who gave much friendly support; Professor Sarah Miller, for
valued advice on structuring the dissertation; and Professor Catherine Cole for
driving me and the dissertation to conclusion.
For their interest and support for my application to undertake the project, I thank
Mr Donald McDonald AC, Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
1996–2006; Professor Julie Warn AM, Director, Western Australian Academy of
Performing Arts; and Emeritus Professor Roger Covell, University of New South
Wales.
Neil McDonald, Wahroonga, Sydney made available papers and other material left to
him by Sir Charles Moses, and gave support, criticism and friendship. The late Ruth
Kenna (nee Cleary) granted me interviews; her nephew the late Greg Clarke (Newee
Creek, Nambucca Shire, NSW), and other descendants of William James Cleary,
were generous with information and a valued contact for me with his legacy.
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My friend the late Nancy Fleming put me in touch with her friend and fellow-student
Ruth Kenna. I thank her for that and for much else.
Thanks to Gordon Kalton Williams, my former colleague at Symphony Australia, for
reading drafts, suggestions and friendship; Yvonne Frindle, of the Sydney
Symphony, for encouragement and support; and Kate Lidbetter, Chief Executive
Officer, Symphony Services Australia, for her organisation’s interest in the
implications of my research for Australia’s orchestras.
Help in libraries and archives came from staff of the National Archives of Australia,
Villawood, NSW (particularly Amy Russell and Kathy Brennan); ABC Archives,
Ultimo, Sydney (Guy Tranter); the National Library of Australia, Manuscripts
Collection, and Robyn Holmes, Curator of Music; and Staff of the Wollongong
University Library.
Much of the writing was done at the University of Wollongong, and my gratitude is
extended to staff of the Faculty of Creative Arts, and to my collaborators in the
Faculty’s Postgraduate Collaborative Laboratory.
More personal gratitude goes to Robert Goodrick, for accommodation in Canberra,
and especially to Siobhan Lenihan and my family.

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