Music: By Radio

The radio made music news last week:

Walter Damrosch and the National Broadcasting Co.'s National Orchestra (TIME, Oct. 29) gave the world premiere of a symphonic work called S O S by one Robert Braine. Composer Braine had his inspiration a year ago in a radio station when S. O. S. calls came in from a Greek ship off Georgia. The same dots and dashes now punctuate his three-minute composition which, if uneventful, was fittingly enough the first to have its premiere by radio.

Also on the air last week was Ganna Walska, charming wife of Harold McCormick, famed more for her wish to sing than for any actual singing. Many a manager has announced Wisher Walska, many an audience has been disappointed until newsmen have denied her a voice and she herself has pleaded stagefright. Evidently the microphone held less terror than a sea of faces for Wisher Walska sang over the radio last week as scheduled, prettily, quaveringly, the "Dich teure Halle" from Tannhauser, Giordoni's Coro Mio Ben, and "Daddy's Sweetheart" by Liza Lehmann.