Pickup's Hiccoughs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 8

Pickup's Hiccoughs

HAD looked forward with some in. terest to héaring the American pro gramme from 3YA_on a Sunday after. noon, consisting of Beethoven’s "Prome theus" Overture, his Fourth Symphony i:

B Flat, and his First Piano Concerto in C Major, and though one expects the reproduction of these recordings to be somewhat less than perfect, it is nevertheless interesting to hear a new versfon, particularly of the piano concerto (in which the soloist was Ania Dorfman), Things went well enough in the overture, and in part of the symphony, but as time and the needle wore on, one had forebodings. The needle jumped forward. Then it jumped backward. One put away one’s score, for this was definitely going to be a completely new version. Even the key signature of the Piano Concer iano concet jano concer iano concerto seemed to be at stake. One wondered whether it should be B Major, or C Major, or D Flat. It varied between all three. One was reminded of the lady who didn’t believe those Fables of Pregnancy, whose mother, she said, had. tripped over a portable gramophone, "But it didn’t affect me, didn’t affect me, didn’t affec me, didn’t affect me at all’ One’s ear had scarcely found the place again before the needle was off, eedle was off, eedle was off, eedlewasoffoncemore. It ought to be someone’s business to decide when these apparently short-lived recordings should be finally written off. Station 3YA at any rate was not going to be held responsible. The announcer apologised for "the constancy of retracking," and added, somewhat furtively, "It was no fault of the technician."