THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 131, 26 December 1941, Page 3

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

hd REAT fun — the sauces seem to matter more than the meat," is the happy description given by W. R. Anderson, English music critic, to Dohnanyi’s "Symphonic Minutes," which will be heard from 1YA on Friday, January 2, at 8.40 p.m. It is a gay, short work in four movements, and listeners who approach them in the spirit in which they are offered, will find them light-hearted and sprightly. This type of music is a particular field in which Dohnanyi (with other Central Europeans, such as Bartok and Kodaly), seem to enjoy working. A spirit of jollity also pervades his "Variations on a Nursery Tune." It’s a Hob-hob-hobby Day Every husband, as Oliver Wakefield said, or was it Oliver Wendell Holmes, or maybe Dickaray, or perhaps Thackens. At any rate, as someone said, every husband should have a hobby, or rather another hobby. Of course, quite a number of husbands already have hobbies. Take Bernard, Shaw, for instance, who is a husband on his days off. He saws wood and sends postcards, Other husbands collect petrol coupons and similar antiques of doubtful value. Some husbands’ hobbies are horses. But there are others who have not yet seen the light, or see it through the bottom of a glass, darkly. To these (or to their wives), we would

recommend the talk by Mrs. Stamp Taylor "Hobbies for Husbands," which 3YA will broadcast on the forenoon of New Year’s Day. Peradventure it may lead to some good resolutions for 1942. Hi Yo, Silver! There’s good news for everyone who used to follow the wild and fabulous adventures of the Lone Ranger from the ZB stations, For he is riding again (yippee), early in the New Year. There

were reports that his voice had been incongruously killed in an automobile accident, but none of us with any imagination at all believed that that was possible, For the Lone Ranger is like Puck and Peter Pan and Popeye and Mickey Mouse and all true heroes; he cannot die, he merely goes on to other adventures, never aging, never tiring of his knightly tasks of rescuing mortgaged maidens and dealing rough justice to horse thieves, hold-up men, and other ornery toads. This Lone Ranger, the ZB’s report, is an entirely new series, but the familiar atmosphere has been retained intact, for which young listeners should be grateful. "Naughty Sounds" "From the first statement of the grotesque faun theme to the sleepy close, the music is wholly sensuous, animal voluptuous," said Henry Noel Brailsford, describing Debussy’s "Prelude a L’Apres Midi d’un Faune" in Adventures in Prose. "The naughty sounds went floating about the broadcloth of the clergyman in front of me, and I found myself wondering what Tolstoy would have thought about it all. He found the Kreutzer Sonata immoral-why, I have never been able to understand. He was shocked because Wagner’s heroes in The Ring come on the stage with bare elbows and naked knees. What fire of denunciation would he not have expended upon this little decadent trifle of Debussy’s." Debussy’s "prelude" ta Mallarmé’s symbolist poem will be heard from 4YO at 9.3 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. Hero, Play, Mountain The image of a symmetrical, snowcapped mountain springs to the minds of most New Zealanders when they hear the name of "Egmont," but to the rest of the world it is the name of a great Netherlander, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, who became the hero of his people, and led their uprising against the Spanish rulers in the middle of the sixteenth century. Some incidents in Egmont’s life were the

basis of a drama by Goethe, and Beethoven’s famous overture, together with nine incidental pieces, was written for performance with this play. The overture, which will open 1YX’s programme at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, December 30, is said to give an outline of the plot of the drama. Our own Egmont was named by Captain Cook in 1770, not after Goethe’s hero, but after the Earl of Egmont, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. Problem The Influence of Whiskers and Other Home Fire Problems is the title of a talk which Ken Alexander will give from Station 2YA on Saturday, January 3, and while there will be many who will agree that it is indeed one of the higher mysteries, there will be ethers, possibly, who will refuse to view it that way. They will prefer to see it as a simple statement of a fundamental truth. For whiskers have undoubtedly influenced our civilisation in various aspects, ranging from neckties to moustache cups to child psychology (see illustrations). There is also the problem

-and it is to be hoped that Mr. Alexander has not overlooked it-of the old man with a beard who said that just as he had feared, an assortment of bird life had made nests in his beard. First Foot Foremost The origin of the ancient Scottish custom of first-footing, which 4YZ will introduce to its listeners at 11.30 p.m. on hogmanay, is, as far as we can determine, lost in the mists (Scots mists) of antiquity and superstition. But we have no doubt that it is a manifestation of the acquisitive, food-gathering instinct, and that it probably originated with the plundering forays which the Highlanders made on the soft southrons of the low country. Conventionalised by a century or two of quasi-civilisation, the custom now is for marauding bands of hungry Caledonians to swoop down upon the homes of their merest acquaintances and there consume vast quantities of food and liquor (which the unfortunates have been saving against the festive season), on the ludicrous pretext that it will bring them (i.e. the unfortunate hosts), good luck. True, there are certain conventions to be observed. The invaders must bring some food across the threshold, and a darkhaired man must enter first, but the second condition costs nothing and the

same article of food, usually a fragment of hard bread ("bap"), or morsel of kebbuck (anglicé, stale cheese), can apparently be used for any number of visits, There have been, indeed, instances of such articles being handed down from one generation to another. The foregoing, however, is but the fruit of our personal researches, and is offered as an introduce tion to (and check upon) the 4YZ broadcast which we commend to your attention. New Year’s Eve Party Most ‘broadcasting stations in New Zealand will be providing something special on New Year’s Eve, but one of the most intriguing programmes is that promised by Station 1ZB, who intend holding a "party" in the Radio Theatre. To enjoy a New Year’s Eve party to the not too full, one usually needs to be on the spot to see what is happening, possibly to eat and drink whatever good things there are to eat and drink, but 1ZB are confident they can bring their party into the homes of all their listeners. It comes on the air at 11 p.m., will last half an hour into 1942, and one of the features will be the debut of an orchestra conducted by Lew Jones, and described officially as "a 13-piece ensemble of an entirely new character." Sybil Phillips, Frank Skeet, and the "Melody Five" will also be there to help along the entertainment. :