Around The Nationals

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 24

Around The Nationals

HE story of Mazeppa has provided a theme for several wellknown poems, suitably those by Byron and Victor Hugo, and also one by the modern poet, Roy Campbell. The composer Liszt wrote a symphonic poem on the subject, telling of the fate of Ivan Stepanovitch Mazeppa-Koledinsky, a Polish gentleman who, when*his intrigue with the wife of a nobleman was discovered by her husband, was stripped naked and bound on to the back of an untamed horse which was then set free. Having originally come from the Russian Ukraine, the horse instinctively returned there and arrived with Mazeppa, half-dead from hunger and fatigue, still tied to its back. He was rescued by peasants and remained with them, distinguishing himself in various campaigns against the Tartars, until by virtue of his birth, education, and influence among the Cossacks, the Tsar eventually made him Prince of the Ukraine. The tone poem "Mazeppa" by Liszt, will be broadcast from 3YA on Sunday, October 12. * * % HE three songs from Acis and Galatea by Handel which will be heard from 2YA in "Masters in Lighter Mood" on Thursday, October 16, are "Love in Her Eyes Sits Playing," and "Love Sounds the Alarm," both sung by Acis, and "As When the Dove Laments Her Love," a solo by Galatea. Handel’s masque was first performed in 1721 for the Duke of Chandos in the private theatre of his magnificent residence at Cannons near Edgware. The scene is "a rural prospect, diversified with rocks, groves, and a river.’’ Eleven years after the first performance Handel produced the work a second time in opposition to Dr. Arne, who is said to have "pirated" the original version for presentation at the Little Theatre. = * * [IN the last century dances used to wind "up with a "cotillon," a word which means "petticoat." Originally a simple French dance of the age of Louis XIV., the 19th century cotillon was a simplified version of the waltz, in which all the company imitated the leading couple, who went through a seemingly endless variety of steps. In the course of the dance the gentlemen would part- — ner almost every lady. According to Percy Scholes the Mormons, owing to their superabundance of women, de--vised a special form of the dance in which every man had two partners at a time. From 1YA on Sunday, October 12, the Cofillon ballet music by Chabrier will be heard. * * % [NX his book England, Their England, " A. G. Macdonell describes a cricket match in the country. It is, perhaps, one of the most, humorous descriptive passages in recent English literature, and is far removed from the account of a similar match to be found in Mary Russell Mitford’s Sketches of English Life and Character, Ardent followers of "ye ancient and honourable game" are likely to approve Professor T. D. Adams’s selection’ of the latter ‘for reading from 4YA at 9.30 p.m. this Friday, October 10. ,