HEDDLE NASH HAS TWO WORRIES FEWER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 77, 13 December 1940, Page 8

HEDDLE NASH HAS TWO WORRIES FEWER

VERY relieved Heddle Nash A arrived back. in New Zealand last week. On the face of things, he did not seem to have much cause for relief. Before he went to Australia he had completed an exceptionally strenuous tour of New Zealand with the Centennial Orchestra, singing day after day, practising hour after hour with the different musical groups in each centre visited. In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Commission had kept him busy still, although concert performances were cancelled and all his work was done in studios. Back in New Zealand, he had another strenuous tour to look forward to. Soon after he arrived, the NBS snapped him up and submitted a busy itinerary for his approval. The results are already evident in the programmes, and his broadcast work was to be added to with performances for choral societies in Christmas music, ; But Heddle Nash was_ nevertheless relieved. It was not that his voice is showing no signs of strain — he takes work as if it were play and believes his voice was meant to be used. It was not ‘that he has successfully given up smok-ing-at the behest of Andersen Tyrer. It was not that he is back in New Zea-land-where, he says, he loves the country and the people.

Sons From England It was that, in Melbourne, Mrs. Nash now had under her eyes their two young sons, who had been marooned in England when the air raids began. He told The Listener that they had been most anxious: about their family, and had had to decide between some weeks of possibly dangerous sea voyaging, and months or more of danger from air raids, with their parents absent. They decided for the sea voyage and, luckily, chose the sea route via the Cape of Good Hope. While their sons were travelling that way, evacuated children were being torpedoed on the Atlantic route. Now they are safe in Melbourne, and settled into school. Melbourne His Headquarters Because Australia offers more opportunities for him, Mr. Nash has decided to make Melbourne his headquarters while he is in the Pacific. So Mrs. Nash has stayed behind there. He expects to be in New Zealand for two months, possibly more, but must return when the waning heat of summer brings music back to life in Australia. During his recent stay there he travelled extensively for the ABC, and sang under Sir Thomas Beecham and Schneevoigt. Sir Thomas he had known, of course, before, and paid a tribute both to his personality and to his musician-

ship. He said that Beecham really had been appreciated in Australia. His audiences had been large and enthusiastic, and he had been thoroughly well liked and very much admired by all the choirs and orchestras that worked under him, When Mr. Nash travelled across Australia by train to Perth, Sir Thomas was one of the party. On the train they organised a musical party. There was quite a good piano, and Sir Thomas played for the singing of the others. Gum Trees and Wild Flowers While he was talking, Andersen Tyrer came into the 2YA studio. The conversation turned to gum trees. "Gum trees!" said Heddle Nash: "I like them." Mr. Tyrer suggested that there might be a few too many gum trees for him to be completely enamoured of them as scenery, but Mr. Nash was off on another tack. He said he had been fascinated by the Australian wild flowers, In Western Australia, when Sir Thomas Beecham bought a book covering local botany, they picked some to identify them; and found too late that this was illegal. *Now aware of the regulations, Mr. Nash said he knew there were the same restrictions in New Zealand and both he and Mr. Tyrer laughingly agreed when a reference to imported pests was explained as applying only to rabbits. By now the singer is busy once again, and still thoroughly enjoying himself. He looks forward to sampling more of a hospitality he has already experienced, and to singing again to audiences whose standard in music, he says, is wonder« fully high.