THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 48, 24 May 1940, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

\X 7E predict a great tuning of dials in the direction of 3YA all over the country as the Centennial Music Festival, which has just finished a season in Dunedin, during which, the weather did its worst and the Festival its best to entertain the citizens, begins this week in Christchurch. Despite the weather, the reception given the visiting artists during the Dunedin week was anything but cold; and for music-lovers who have not yet managed to make a date with their sets for these concerts, we would suggest that they consult the 3YA programmes, and make up for lost time. Fred’s Birthday Lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan may remember that February 29 this year was the date on which Frederick, of the " Pirates of Penzance," became twenty-one. Having been born in Leap Year, the melodious hero

of this light opera has had to wait sixty years for his coming-of-age. Now, although the happy event is a few months past, we may join in the celebrations with the Pirate King and all the rest; for the NBS is presenting a special broadcast of Act 1 of "The Pirates of Penzance" from 1YA, Auckland, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 1. Pye 15 (8 1 Well, well, well, dear me-or rather, dear us, to perpetuate the impersonal. The exclamation is occasioned, in this case, by our having just noticed another of the talks in the intriguing "Music and Flowers" series. Last week, you may remember, we expressed mild puzzlement at "Flowers in a Soldier's

Life," having always thought that flowers played a rather small part among The Military; but now to perplex us even more comes "Shorthand and Flowers." Where, as the lost traveller said, is the connection? Obviously you are required to do the Sherlock Holmes act with your wireless; here are, however, a few clues. The speaker is Dr. Robert John Gregg. The time and place are 10.45 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, Station 2YA, Wellington. Daddy of Them All To use a colloquialism, as far as opera is concerned, "Orpheus and Euridice" is the daddy of them all. Christoph Willibald von Gluck, who wrote it, was born in Bavaria in 1714. In his twenties, he composed operas in Italy; in his forties, he wrote them in London, where he also performed on certain musical glasses, which he claimed to be of his own invention. This opera, which tells how Orpheus sought and found his dead wife, Euridice, in the Underworld, is the earliest operatic work of any composer which still maintains a place on the regular stage. It will be broadcast at 9.15 p.m. on Sunday, May 26, from 1YA, Auckland. Music of General’s Daughter Dame Ethel Mary Smyth is the daughter of an artillery general, and it has been said that she has never been unwilling to fire a shot in those causes in which she believessuch as, say;-national opera or feminism. In 1911, she spent two months in one of His Majesty’s gaols as a militant suffragette, and in 1922 received from the King’s hands the equivalent of a knighthood. Her main work has been as a composer, and several of her operas have been produced, besides orchestral and choral works. "The Wreckers" is an opera dealing with the inhabitants of the Cornish coasts, who lured ships on to the coast and plundered them for spoil. Music from the Dame’s opera will be heard at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 26, from 2YA, Wellington. Snow Most people will swear black and blue that snow is white, and rock, photographically at least, black. But those peculiar people who like to roll in it, or slide over it, or climb up it, will insist that snow is very colourful stuff, and rock, from the point of view of any but a road engineer, just as attractive, artistically. Separately’ and together, they both attract photographers. Usually, they baffle photo- graphers, for the lights that play among them, in atmospheres thinner and clearer than most

cameras are used to, require the greatest subtleties of technique if they are to be rendered with any subtlety on film. Thelma Kent, well known as a landscape photographer and to listeners for her earlier series of talks on photography, has also interested herself in snow pictures, and will talk on the subject from 3YA at 7.35 p.m. on Friday, May 31. Otway’s Tragedy Thomas Otway was a prolific English 17th Century dramatist who is now remembered chiefly for one play, "Venice Preserved, or a Plot Discovered." Venice was a happy hunting ground for English dramatists, especially of the Restoration period, for that old city provided many lurid intrigues, both fictitious and real. In Otway’s tragedy, love, hate, pride and jealousy are portrayed without half-measures; so if you like full-blooded melodrama, tune in to 2YA on Sunday, May 26, at 9.15 p.m. for an NBS preduction of the play. Yurrip Europe is famous for other things than wars, in spite of declarations to the contrary by the cynical. For one thing, Europeans have colonised all the rest of the world except where populations were already too thick, and sometimes even there. Wars not counted, colonisation has meant all sorts of interesting things. Here, for example, it has meant hares and rabbits and deer and weeds and scoured hillsides. New Zealanders are not always properly grateful for these amenities of civilisation, as listeners will probably learn if they tune to 3YA at 7.35 p.m, on Wednesday, May 29, when the " Europe Overflows" series will be continued with a discussion on using and abusing New Zealand’s vegetation, Posture According to one of our sports writers and an American physiologist, there is no hope for a human kind developed in very inefficient shape from four-footed animals. Spines buckle, pelvises crumple, knees knock, tummies topple, feet flatten, and biological sin rages rampant through the race, But there is hope. Down in Dunedin, they have the Association for Country Education, attached to the Home Science Tutorial Section of the University of Otago, There, emerging through all the capital letters, lies a solution. The A.C.E, has some ideas about the relation of posture to health, and will talk about them from 4YA at 3.15 p.m. on Friday. May 31.

Yacht Odyssey Another talk describing the experiences of herself and her father, Commander Graham, will be given from 2YA on Tuesday, May 28, at 7.30 p.m. by Marguerite Graham. One instalment of her written account of the voyage of the tiny "Caplin" has already been printed in The Listener. More will follow. Miss Graham makes a very simple, almost a homely tale of the long passages undertaken in their 35-foot yacht on the trip from Bantry Bay, Ireland, to New Zealand. They are now wintering in this country, taking time to refit thoroughly and, fortunately for listeners, to look back on their experiences, Old Earth From the point of view of a man or woman who weighs anything from nine to twelve stone, or stands from five to six feet tall, Old Earth is a pretty big sort of vantage point from which to view the passing pageant of the heavens, But we get used to size. It is only relative to speed, and our conception of space is dependent only on how fast we can

travel through it, But time is another matter. We start and travel and stop, and nobody yet has been able to do anything about it. Time wins hands down in every way, and accordingly becomes a pretty impressive element in living. Although we don’t know much about the way Time works, we do our best to play with our small figures. Listeners who want to know something of the result other than our artist’s suggestion, should listen to the talk on the age of the earth from 4YA at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 28.