THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 83, 24 January 1941, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

EGENDS and amusing. stories gather thick round the memory of Hugh Stewart, Classical scholar, soldier, and administrator, the friend of a generation of students of Canterbury College and of every man in the Canterbury Regiment in Flanders. An acquaintance who dropped in to see him in his dug-out one day found him having a cup of tea with another man, whom he introduced like this: "I want you to meet John, my batman and my friend." So when he returned to his professorial chair he always translated milites as "diggers." He even wore his "British warm" into lecture rooms when he felt the Christchurch winter, with his academic gown over the top. Arnold Wall, his colleague, pays high tribute to Hugh Stewart in his talk from 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesday, January 28, and all his old friends and admirers will delight afresh in the memory of this great New Zealander. Film Fashions Hollywood, so the fashionable magazines tell us, is fast becoming the fashion. centre of the world. Once it was Paris, then London and New York began to have more and more influence, and now it is Hollywood. It’s not to be wondered at, with the leading dress designers of America working there for the film studios. Schiaparelli, France’s most famous designer, fled from the Nazis when Paris fell, and is now in Americait is a safe bet that she too, will end up in Hollywood. The point is, of course, that

what Hollywood screen stars wear determines what New Zealand women wear, directly affects the budget of the New Zealand working man and indirectly, the economy of the whole country. It’s a solemn and terrible thought. But to come to the reason for all this. Station 3ZB is finding that Christchurch women take a keen interest in the "Hollywood Fashion Parade," which has been broadcast on recent Tuesdays. The session is compiled from up-to-the-minute bulletins from Hollywood, and, in general, tells what the well-dressed young celluloid lovely is wearing these days. There’ll be another session next Tuesday morning at 11.15. Man-of-War How many students of New Zealand history have been brought up on the hoary old aphorism that James Busby was "a man-of-war without guns?" It is a facile description, but it does contain a grain of one of the facts of historythat James Busby had position without authority. Moreover, this generation seems to be coming to the conclusion that Busby has not been treated fairly by historians, and Douglas Cresswell’s talk in the "Cradle of New Zealand" series on "Mr. Busby’s Difficulties," to be given from 4YA on Tuesday, January 28, throws light on some of the problems that James Busby had to deal with. Canoe Tracks Eric Ramsden’s interest in the Maori people led him into the wider sphere of Polynesia, and, eventually brought him the friendship of Charles Nordhoff, the American novelist, who lives in Tahiti. "At his suggestion," writes Mr. Ramsden from Sydney, "I visited Tahiti, the ancient homeland, Hawaiki, of the ‘Maori people. It was indeed a thrill to stand on the shore opposite the actual break in the reef through which, six

centuries ago, the ancestors of my own people had sailed out in the canoe, Tainui. How the old people were excited on my return, and plied me with questions concerning that strange exotic island! I even voyaged to Taputapuatea, the ancient ‘cathedral’ of Polynesian religion, on the island of Raiatea. And from there I brought back a piece of its sacred stone to the Maori people of Waikato. To-day it has an honoured place in the carved meeting house called Mahinarangi in Ngaruawahia. The old folk wept over it ..." In his talk "Retracing the Canoe ‘Tracks to Tahiti" Mr. Ramsden recounts same of

his experiences in Tahiti. It will be heard from 4YA at 7.15 p.m. on Wednesday next, January 29. And a Bottle of Rum Listeners who have never been to Auckland must be puzzled, we often think, by an item which appears regularly in the 1YA programmes. At 9.25 on Saturday, says this item, there will be a relay of old-time dance music from the Pirate Shippe, Milford. Now that seems a strange state of affairs, and if we were in the mood for fantasy, which we are not at the moment, we

would speculate at length as to the reason for all this rascality. Is it just a Peter Panish prank, or is there real musical skullduggery afoot every Saturday night at Ye Olde Pirate Shippe? But we know the answer, and as you too have probably guessed, the Pirate Shippe is a cabaret, quaintly built in the form of a 16th century ship, complete with masts, spars and rigging. Our artist, a whimsical fellow, couldn’t resist the idea of a couple of pirates dancing to the strains of a piratical orchestra (hidden) with 1YA’s microphone in the background (also hidden). Yo, ho, ho, if you get what we mean. Sonatina In the list of names of world famous. composers and musicians who will be heard in 1YA’s Chamber Music Hour on January 29, there appears, inconspicuously, "Sonatina in G Major" composed by John Tait. Such modesty undoubtedly suits the shy, white-haired man known to music-lovers in Auckland as a music teacher and church organist. New Zealand should be ‘proud of a composer whose works have been published in England and widely recognised. John Tait brought his family from Edinburgh to Nelson about 25 years ago, has been settled in Auckland for the past 12 years (at one time he lived in a house directly under Grafton Bridge), and can now be reasonably called a New Zealander. In this studio recital Winifred Hayes, violinist, Pavlos be accompanied by the composer himself at the piano. All Kinds of Music To the biased ear of the classicist there are dance bands and dance bands. One might even say-and dance bands. They vary all the way from gentle innocuous combinations from which music oozes (so to speak) in rhythmic gelatinous globs, to bands which rattle out.

a definite and determinate. bass accompaniment which is punctuated by sharp squeals and moans. In between, fortunately, there are bands which are capable of both accomplishments but which usually do neither, preferring a middle course of pleasant, comparatively melodious dance music. The majority of listeners show an unashamed preference for this "middle" class, and, in conformity, these are the bands which the ZB stations are mostly presenting in their series "Famous Dance Bands." Station 2ZB presents the session at 10.0 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Four " Fausts " Goethe’s drama "Faust" has fired at least four great composers with a desire to present it as an opera. First there was Wagner, who got as far as composing the overture, but abandoned the idea when the theatre for which he was writing the work was compelled to close. Then there was Gounod, with his popular "Faust," which is the best known, followed by Boito, with his "Mephisto." Then came Berlioz with his "Damnation of Faust," and it is Berlioz’s opera which, complete with continuity and descriptive notes added by the NBS, will be presented from 1YA on January 26. The opera takes a little over an hour and a half to present, and this will be the second time it has been presented over the YA stations, the first occasion being from 2YA on July 14 last.