Too Timid

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 544, 25 November 1949, Page 11

Too Timid

TATION 2YA has recently been notable for broadcasting series of fecitals on similar topics. Ome was the set by Myra Sawyer and H. Temple White on the very best-known works of the great song writers, a series in which Mr. White’s few sentences were’ harmless introductions to Miss Sawyer’s pleasant Singing, which would have become really fine if she had stepped up her tempos a little, for her rhythms and intonation were excellent. A different type of programme is that under the title of "Music in Russia, introducing Alice Graham (contralto)." Here the aim is much higher, and in my, opinion the distance of the shot from’ the bull’s-eye muca greater. An attempt is made to provide real information about Russian composers and to illustrate it from their works. The result to me is simply annoying. The time is too brief to treat the matter seriously; the musical excerpts are necessarily short and unrelated. Take, for example, the section on Borodin. The isolated facts gleaned from reference books were in some cases not very accurately used; his obtaining of a doctor’s degree gave the implication that he earned his living thus. In actual fact he was a professor of chemistry. The real key to an understanding of Borodin is surely the exuberant imagination of the inspired amateur unrestrained by the controlled training of the professional. This was not brought out. The weakness of the series, however, is that after the recordings a sharp drop in artistic temperature occurs when Miss Graham sings. Her excellent series on Scots folk songs was given with the truly authentic touch. I should hazard a guess that Miss Graham knew them in their original location. She has not, however, the power to interpret Russian songs in the same way. One thinks, can these songs really be as dull as that? The authentic frisson is lacking. The whole concept of the series is too timid: the study should be better written, more comprehensive, with more and wider chosen examples,

all recordings. It is impossible in half-an-hour to treat the music of one composer in this way, let alone two, as is

now attempted.

D.

M.