Blighted Prospect

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 399, 14 February 1947, Page 12

Blighted Prospect

"THERE was the prospect of a pretty good half-hour from 3YA_ between 5.45 and 6.15 p.m. on Sunday. The first quarter-of-an-hour was taken up with Walter Gieseking playing Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite. I have heard musicians quarrelling over Gieseking’s presentation of some of Debussy’s Preludes and have felt myself, in a rather vague way, that something was wrong, or that Cortot would have done it differently, but his Children’s Corner is thoroughly satisfying in the way it is interpreted, and my complaint was never of his technique, which is stupendous. From 6.0 to 6.15 there was a light programme of verse and music: Limericks and Landler. Landler were explained pleasantly, and a few of these sportive dances were played by Lili Kraus and Alfred Cortot, while limericks were pulled out at intervals, like plums from a pie. It was a good idea and could have been a most entertaining quarter-hour, but I regret to say that the script was careless and the reading not up to standard. It is a New Zealand tradition that a length of balingwire will hold a sagging gate indefinitely, and near enough is good enough, but making do with clichés on the radio. is not. good enough. Far better to have no. introduction to a limerick than to say "Have you heard this one?" or "This one may be acceptable," and far better to have no limerick than to read the last line in such a way that it does not scan.