THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 39, 21 March 1940, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

HAT very curious radio personality, Everyman, who likes cold weather, has turned up at 4YA again, where winter seems to be coming earlier than the calendar would suggest. In the revived Winter Course series he will inquire, at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 26, how a chemist earns his living and what chemistry is all about. Capitals The third of James Bertram’s talks on China will be broadcast by 2YA at 7.40 p.m. on Monday, March 25. This time he will discuss five of those immense collections of seething humanity which are the capital cities of China. He has seen them and lived in them, and he can’ talk about them with more intimate knowledge than usually comes to the casual tourist. This series is nearing its end. Those who have not yet heard Mr. Bertram should make up the deficiency. . The Dentist Does a dentist like anything? No doubt there are some among our readers who at this moment will be prepared to swear through clenched teeth that all dentists are misanthropists. But down at Station 4YA they are more optimistic, and on Monday,

March 25, at 8.25 p.m., they are going to ask one what he does like-especially in the way of radio items. Our artist suggests that a dentist would like a loud speaker in his surgery to stifle the cries of suffering patients, but listeners will take that at its face value. Very Modern Francis Poulenc, at 41, is one of the youngest and most striking of the modern French composers. He is a disciple of Erik

Satie, who wrote his scores in red ink and gave his compositions titles like "Pieces in the Shape of a Pear," and "Limp Preludes for a Dog," and who some people think, was plain mad instead of clever. Another of Poulenc’s friends is the intellectual Jean Cocteau who is also regarded with suspicion by most allegedly sane people. It is not to be wondered at, then, that his progress in music has been rather irregular and his work eccentric. Nevertheless his music, being provocative, has attracted much attention. So, if you're interested, listen in to 4YA Dunedin on Sunday, March 24 at 2.30 p.m., when his "Aubade," a concerto for piano and eighteen instruments, will be heard, played by the composer and the Straram Concert Orchestra. Gregary That may or may not be the correct noun from "gregarious." We were prompted to invent it after hearing Ngaig@ Marsh’s comments on the gregarious instincts of organised humankind. Which brings us to 1YA on Friday, March 29, at 1 p.m., when the community sing will be relayed from the Auckland Town Hall concert chamber. The success of community sings, we are sure, has something to do with being gregarious. If it has, we can call it gregary, then we're sure that from Auckland it will be good gregary with "Let’s Get Together" as a more colloquial motto than "More and Better Gregariousness." Bishop Hadfield Octavius Hadfield, whom Henry Williams brought down to the Otaki district at the end of 1839, and who lived to be Bishop of Wellington and Primate of New Zealand, has had less than justice in history. He has been over-shadowed by the genius of Selwyn. Hadfield was a delicate man, but he was a man of indomitable courage and determination. His first parish stretched from Cook Strait to Taranaki, and he used to walk up and down it and risk his life in‘small boats. He employed some years of invalidism in hard reading, and when he took up his work again, he was well equipped to help Selwyn in the framing of the constitution of the Anglican Church in New Zealand. After the Wairau Massacre, he and Wiremu Kingi prevented an attack on Wellington by Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, and later Hadfield stood up with equal courage to Hauhau emissaries. In the Taranaki war, like Selwyn, he took the side of the Maoris, and in consequence suffered obloquy. He accepted

appointment as Bishop of Wellington in 1870, and became Primate twenty years afterwards. There is to be a talk on Bishop Hadfield by S. T. C. Sprott in the series "Leaders of the Churches in Early New Zealand." This will be given on Easter Sunday, March 24, at 3 p.m. from 2YA. The Actor's Son Carl Maria von Weber grew up among property baskets and grease-paint. His father was an actor-manager, who travelled extensively. The son’s early years, among actors, musicians and royalty (for he got a footing among the petty court life of the period) were marked by dissipation. Later he married and reformed, but continued composing operas and symphonies. He is best remembered because in his short life (he died at forty) he established a German national opera, and also founded the Romantic School in opera. Weber’s "Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in F Minor" will be’ heard at 9.40 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, from 4YA Dunedin. Murderer Still At Large There’s a murderer, garbed as a hangman and doing his dirty work with a running noose, still at large. But don’t be alarmedhe exists only in the hair-raising, teethrattling serial, called "The Mysterious Mr. Lynch." The title’s an understatement, as you'll know if you’ve listened to the six episodes already broadcast by 2YA Wellington. Mr. Lynch is more than mysterious--he’s blood-chilling, ghastly, shattering.’ Even Hollywood could hardly find adjectives to describe him. In the episode to be broadcast at 8.32 p.m. on Friday, March 29, from 2YA, there are more scares, more nooses, more tests for the hero-so, if you think you can take it, tune in! One String Fiddle One hears of one-string fiddles, but only rarely does one meet the people who play them. The other day, in an _ interview, Norman Sander, who is to perform at 8.17 p.m. on Monday, March 25, from 2YA Wellington, told us how he constructs these unusual instruments. His first one-string fiddle he made from a kerosene tin and a broomstick. That worked well, but he soon mad2 a new one from an old white-pine fence paling, the reproducer of a gramophone, a bit off an ordinary pen, some old cigarette tins, and a pin. "It is so roughly constructed, " said Mr. Sander, "that you'd. hardly think

you could get music from it at all. But the sound is very sweet." By the way, he uses a banjo second string, and an ordinary violin bow. If you like the unusual in entertainment, don’t forget to listen to this item. Gary and Marco In case listeners think the new 2YD serial feature has something to do with the Gary Polo who appeared two years ago in the Marco Cooper movie, "The Adventures of Marco Polo," we have to state that the radio item is the real thing. In the year 1271, Marco Polo went with his father and uncle on a Papal embassy to Kublai, Grand Khan of Tartary. With this and that they were away for 24 years. When he came back,

Marco was popped into prison by the Genoese, who caught him in a sea battle. So Marco promptly started two fashions: the travel book, and the book written in prison. (Cf. Bunyan, Hitler, et al.) The first of 52 15minute episodes from the George Edwards (Australia) studios will begin at 2YD on Wednesday, March 27, at 8.15 p.m. Intrigue Scarlatti’s ballet "The Good-Humoured Ladies" is taken from an old Italian play by Goldoni. And as the old Italians, Goldoni included, had a passion for plays brimful of complicated intrigue, this particular comedy has its full share of love scenes between the wrong people, anonymous letters, girls with roses in their hair, and maids and Marquises making pretty little plots and plans. You should find this ballet a savoury item when it is presented i in the "Music from the Theatres" series at 9.37 p.m. on ae March 29 from 1YA Auckland.