THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 130, 19 December 1941, Page 3

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

HAT with Bob Dyer, who says that he is the last of the Tennessee _hill-billies, and frequent playings of hill-billy records, ZB listeners are having a good share of this lively American folk music. And doubtless they'll be glad to hear it is hill-billy night at Ciro’s night club in the Hello From Hollywood programme at 1ZB on Tuesday, December 23. The band featured is that of Cal Shrum and his Rhythm Rangers, who play such numbers as "Rhythm Ranger Blues" and the old traditional tune "Arkansas Traveller." There is a guest artist who calls herself "Texas Ruby," though it’s not explained how a gal from Texas got herself into the company of an outfit of hillbillies. Musicologists, by the way, may be interested to know that there’s a serious side to the music of Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of the tunes can be traced» back to the songs which travelled over to America with the first pilgrims. Ragtime Banned ‘We can only conclude that when Ken Alexander called the talk which he is to give from 2YA on Saturday week, "Penny Memories," he did so because his tuppence-coloured recollections were banned. We sympathise with him, Much of a working journalist’s life is lived at a ragtime tempo and it is

natural that his reminiscences should be coloured, by-well, be coloured. At the same time, it would be unjust, and incorrect, to assume that just because Mr. Alexander’s are penny memories they are also plain. One can always talk in pastel tones if one doesn’t want to paint the town red, though for that matter a red is as good as a pink to a colour-blind nag, and in any case there seems to be little difference between reds and pinks these days. Leetle Sof’ Music, Please Barnum used to say that the clown and elephants were the pegs on which a circus was hung, but he may have been overlooking the circus band. The band has always been a feature of

famous circuses, from the trio for cornet, trombone, and drum up to the modern 60 piece ensemble. The "March of the Gladiators" has thrilled the hearts of millions of youngsters under 80, and one has only to recall how Sousa, as a boy, ran away from home to join a circus band, Parades, grand marches, and pageants all call for music, and do you not remember the "slow music" to which daring feats were performed on tight ropes and trapezes, what time you sucked your boiled sweet excitedly and craned your neck till it cricked and thought "Gosh, what if it fails?" "Music from the Circus" will be broadcast by 3YA at 8.26 p.m, on Saturday, December 27,

Our English Composers "TI willingly, to avoid tediousness, forbeare to speak of the worth and excellencie of our English composers," said Henry Peachum in "The Compleat Gentleman" in 1622. "Master Doctor Douland, Tho, Morley, M., Farmer, Tho. Ravenscroft, M. Wilkes, Michael East, M, Willbie, with sundry others, are inferior to none in the world (how much soever the Italian attributes to himselfe) for depth of skille and richness of conceit." Madrigals and ballads by Morley, Ravenscroft, and Farmer will be heard from 4YA. on Sunday, December 21, at 3.8 p.m., sung by the Madrigal Singers. Bach’s Rescuer Speaks Charles Gounod, whom musicians censure for his additions to J. S. Bach’s first prelude in C Major, has been confounded by his own words. Eric Blom, an English musician, discovered the following appropriate quotation from an article written by Gounod in "Le Figaro," on October 19, 1891: "Bach is

a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, but Bach is the most comprehensive: he has said all there is to say." Blom adds: "Except when he forgot to write the tune to the first prelude in the ‘Well-tempered Clavier’ afterwards kindly supplied by Gounod." Other musicians find fault with Gounod’s song on other grounds. Sir Donald Tovey says that Gounod has misinterpreted Bach’s harmonic implication at one point. Others are satisfied to condemn the piece for its use of the Bach prelude as mere accompaniment. George Moore possibly had it in mind when (in Memoirs of My Dead Life) he referred to Gounod as "a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the back of every woman he met." The "Bach-Gounod" Ave Maria will be played by the J. H. Squire Celeste Octet at 4.15 p.m. on Sunday, December 21, over 4YA., A Horse, a Horse! "Horses to the Rescue" is the title of a talk Mary Scott will give from 3YA on the morning of Friday, December 26, and while it is obviously a recital of the occasions on which horses have saved lives or rescued humans from dire predicaments, it would be interesting to know where she gathered sufficient material for a whole radio talk. There are any number of cele-

brated incidents involving horses, from Pegasus down to Beau Vite, but where, please, are the rescues? It happens in Hollywood every second day, we know, but that strictly doesn’t count, and the suggestion in our illustration, though it will no doubt be applauded by horse lovers, is slightly frivolous. Since the talk will be given during the holiday period, it is just possible that there is a reference to successful speculation on the totalisator. But that, as somebody remarked of Ibsen; is a Norse of a different colour. A Time to Keep Among the items appropriate to the day, to be heard from 3YA on Christmas. Eve, will be a session of readings by O. L, Simmance, entitled "How They Spent Christmas." One can, of course, spend Christmas in lots of ways, One can spend it in the bosom of .one’s family, as one should, and one can spend it in the bosom of one’s wife's family, which ought to be the next best thing. One can spend it in fast-

ing or in gluttony, one can be filled with the spirit of goodwill and Christmas pudding or one can be flown with insouciance and wine, All according to one’s fancy, the depth of one’s pocket, or of one’s mind. But as was stressed in the last issue of The Listener, the important thing is not the spending of Christmas but the keeping of it, and no doubt Mr. Simmance, of his charity, will provide for that, too, De Year ob Jubilo A broadcast of more than passing interest to lovers of band music will be the Golden Jubilee programme to be given from 3YA on Monday next at 8.2 p.m. by the Woolston Brass Band, From the very nature of things brass bands can hardly be unobtrusive organisations, and there are few in New Zealand which have resounded further or more successfully than the Woolston Band. To those precisians who find something incongruous in the idea of a brass band having a golden jubilee we would point out (as Messrs. Fowler and Le Mesurier do on page 616 of The Concise Oxford Dictionary) that jubilee is derived from the Hebrew yobel, a ram’s horn, by association with the Latin jubilum, a shout. So, when the trumpet says "Ha! Ha!" this time, it will (appropriately) be the Woolston Band's shout, and there should be few listeners to complain of the quality of their hospitality.