"THIS TWENTIETH CENTURY"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 107, 11 July 1941, Page 17

"THIS TWENTIETH CENTURY"

| (QNE of the finest collections of rare recordings in the Southern Hemisphere provides the foundation for the new ZB feature, This Twentieth Century, produced by Kenneth Melvin, As most record collectors know, the recording companies oof England, America and the Continent issue regular limited editions of special interest to col- | lectors. Some of these were issued as long as 30 and 40 years ago, well before | the era of electric recording, and are now as valuable as first editions and original etchings. This Twentieth Century presents many discs from Mr. Melvin’s library. It is, in effect, a diary of our times, presented in a 15-minute mixture o speech, music and drama. : Listeners will hear the actual piano playing of the composer Saint-Saens, who was born in 1838; the voices of Adelina Patti, Ellen Terry, Count Leo Tolstoy, Conan Doyle, Edgar Wallace, Christabel Pankhurst, Mr. Asquith, Lloyd George, J. R. Clynes, Grenfell of Labrador, and Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft; Commandet Peary describing his discovery of the North Pole in 1909; Sir Ernest Shackleton, Lord Roberts; M. Venizelos, former premier of Greece; Sir Charles Wakefield, the "father of British aviation"; actual recordings of gas-shell ‘bombardments in France in 1918, and so on, The first episode presents an exciting cavalcade of the year 1900, described as "the year of bicycles, bloomers and the first horseless carriages." That was the year of the abdication of the Chinese Emperor and the beginning of the Boxer rebellion, the year when the first New Zealand contingent sailed for South Africa to take part in the Boer War, when Mafeking was relieved, when Paderewski, whose death occurred in America last week, first went to London, when Lord Ranfurly, then Governor of New Zealand, formally annexed the Cook |

Islands, when a youngster by the name of Jack Hobbs was beginning to make a name for himself in English cricket, when William Taft, later to become President of the United States, went to the Philippines as America’s first Governor there, when The Belle of New York was the most popular musical’ comedy, and the "Mirabelle" waltz the most popular tune. Reminders of all of these are presented together with snatches of tunes, and, in the case of Taft and Hobbs, recordings of actual voices "This Twéntieth Century" runs to 52 episodes. It will be heard at 7.15 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, and started at 4ZB on July 7, and will start at 3ZB on July 14, at 2ZB on July 21, at 1ZB on July 28, and | at 2ZA Palmerston North, on August 4.