BROADCASTING ACCOUNTS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27150, 21 September 1953, Page 2

BROADCASTING ACCOUNTS

Sir, —Your correspondent “Listener” states that further information is required about broadcasting accounts. Listening to “Music Magazine,” we are informed that the violinist, Maurice Clare has just recorded for broadcasting all of Bach’s unaccompanied violin sonatas. Since the New Zealand Broadcasting Service already has these recorded by one of the world’s greatest violinists, it would be interesting to know who is responsible for this extravagant waste of money. Surely the expense is quite unjustified, more especially since a very small proportion of the listening public will benefit.— Yours, etc., INFORMATION PLEASE September 15, 1953. [The above letter has been referred to the Director of Eroadcasting (Mr W. Yates), whose comment follows: “Of the six unaccompanied sonatas by Bach, the Broadcasting Service has never had commercial or other recordings of Nos. 2 and 6. It fellows, of course, that until Mr Clare recorded them, no complete set of the sonatas has been available. Fairly recent issues of three are in the library: No. 1, Menuhin, 1950: No. 4, Campoli, 1949; No. 5, Renardi, 1951. Recordings of the ’thirties by Szigeti, Busch, and Menuhin, of Nos. 1 and 3, 4 and 5 respectively, are still in the library. It will be seen that even the incomplete set is not the work of 'one of the world’s greatest violinists,’ but represents that of five. Current English catalogues retain only two of the six sonatas, in recordings by Campoli, Renardi and Gioconda de Vito. Finally, Mr Clare’s recordings have been made with the type of bow used in Bach’s day and illustrate its technical and musical advantages, as described by Albert Schweitzer, for example.”]