THE RADIO WORLD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1938, Page 2

THE RADIO WORLD

PEOPLE AND PROGRAMMES ON PARADE NEWS AND NOTES.

(By

“Listener-In.")

Highlights—At a Glance. To-morrow night:—Cara Hall, brilliant young New Zealand pianist, IYA; Gounod’s ‘‘Faust,” 2YA; Recitals by Nancy Estall (’cello), Ernest Jenner (pianoforte), Vera Martin (contralto), and Gladys Vincent (violin), 3YA; complete presentation Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore.”

Monday night:—Studio play, “The Reed in the Wood” and wrestling commentary, IYA; Cynthia HerbertSmith in piano recital of compositions by modern English composers, and wrestling broadcast, 2YA; band programme and 3YA Chamber Music Players, 3YA; Dora Lindsay, Scottish character artist and studio play, “The Cupboard Under the Stairs,” 4YA. Tuesday night:—Robert McKnight (English concertina), IYA; compositions Rimsky Korsakov, Borodin and Mozart, 2YA; recorded Serial features and the Radio Rhythm Boys, 3YA; popular recordings and brass band concert, 4YA. Wednesday night:—Election results, IYA, 2YC, 3YA and 4YA; “’>he Man of Destiny,” (George Bernard Shaw, an N.B.S. production), 2YA. Thursday night:—Serial features and dance music by Blind Institute Band, IYA; Four Kings of Rhythm, Kitty Grey (child impersonator), and the Aeolians, 2YA; recorded play, “The Wraith,” and Dora Lindsay, 3YA; recorded concert by London Symphony Orchestra and Dr T. Vernon Griffiths’ “Masterpieces of Music” programme, 4YA

Friday night:—Readings by Mr D’Arcy Creswell and Lionel Harris (pianist), IYA; bright recordings and miscellaneous band programme, 2YA; Mrs Hamilton Mercer

(mezzo-contralto) and Mina Gale (soprano) and 3YA Orchestra, 3YA; popular recordings and chamber- music concert, 4YA.

A Brilliant Young Man. A number of Masterton music lovers will remember Michael Head, who presented a concert at Solway College in 1936, under the auspices of the Masterton branch of the British Music Society. This brilliant young man amazed all with the ease and beauty with which he played and sang his own compositions. Mr Head had his first song published when he was nineteen years of age—just after the war. He is best known for his song settings of contemporary poets, although he has gone back to Elizabethan poets for some of his lyrics. Vera Martin, contralto will be heard in “Over the Rim of the Moon,” a song cycle by Michael Head, from 3YA tomorrow night. This

cycle consists of four short songs—- “ The Ships of Arcady"; "Beloved”; “A Blackbird's Song” and “Nocturne.”

Gounod and Wagner. “Gounod's ‘Faust’ was produced for ■ the first time at the Theatre Lyrique on March 19, 1859, and was at first only moderately successful,” writes Ernest Newman in his book "Stories of the Great Operas.” “It quickly established itself in public favour, however, and in very short time had overrun all Europe, including even Germany, which had come to regard itself, in a special sense, as the guardian of the Faust subject. It has been said, though with what truth we do not know, that it was the overwhelming popularity of Gounod’s Faust that held Wagner back from the completion of his own work. Reading between the lines of his autobiography, we can perhaps see that Wagner was anything but pleased with this success of a French composer jn i what was regarded as a specifically German subject. During the troublous days of the production of ‘Tannhauser’ in Paris in 1861, Gounod boldly championed the cause of Wagner, ‘As an acknowledgement of this,’ says Wagner,’ I presented him with a score of Tritan and Isolde, being all the more gratified by his behaviour because no considerations of friendship had been able to induce me to hear his Faust.” Gounod’s Faust will , be heard in complete recorded form from 3YA tomorrow night.