Background to Mr. Toch

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 527, 29 July 1949, Page 11

Background to Mr. Toch

\VEDNESDAY evening was thick, but they were still fiying at Wigram at half-past nine, I was in bed early on the verandah, listening to a record from 3YA of the Chicago Symphony playing Pinocchio (A Merry Overture) by a gentleman named Toch, of whom, let us be frank, I had never heard. In the background the Harvards strummed and roared. Mr. Toch’s work was quite pleasant, with pointed and lively writing for strings. Then something went wrong. For 10 seconds I didn’t know what it was; not the music, nothing in the house-ah, the background. The even strumming had become irregular, there were coughs, hiccups, fitful blasts, a last cough, and silence. I switched off the bed lamp, looked out over the plain, and waited. Nothing happened. Mr. Toch’s strings went on, in and out, up and down: no renewed engine roar, no flash of fire at ground level, no sound. of a distant crash, I listened and | looked for 10 minutes, after which I reckoned that if anyone had been in trouble (and I'll sweat that aircraft was not on the ground) it had been resolved one way or the other. From 3YA Mr. Toch gave way to a Khachaturian Suite, : slippery as an egg on a hot buttered plate, but less substantial. The drizzle thickened, the sky nosed the rooftops. No more aircraft flew that night, but it was a while before I went to sleep.

G. leF.

Y.