THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 140, 27 February 1942, Page 3

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

HOUGH Albert Roussel was a French composer of some standing his work is almost unknown to New Zealand. Orphaned in 1874 at the age of seven, Roussel found his way later into the French navy and while still in the navy began writing pieces for the piano. At the same time he made many trips to the Orient and the impressions he gained of the Far East were used later in some of his music. Roussel’s Third Symphony (in G Minor) will be heard from 4YA at 8.17 p.m, on Thursday, March 5. 3 Sonatas A. & M. Chamber music enthusiasts will be in-\ terested in the broadcast which Owen Jensen, studio pianist at 1YA, is programmed to make on the evening of March 4, when he will present two sonatas, one by Scarlatti and the other by Hindemith. Scarlatti’s sonatas, which are among the earliest compositions in this form, are more or less keyboard exercises, harmonically straightforward and conventional, very different in form from the sonatas of the Romantic period. The work of Hindemith, on the other hand, is ultra-modern and displays the harmonic freedom so frequently found to-day. But in spite of the contrast in harmony, the attentive listener will find that in form and style the Hindemith sonata goes back as far as Haydn and Mozart and is indeed closer to Scarlatti’s primitives than much of the work in this genre composed in the intervening generations. . i een

O Tempera, O Mores! Things are not what they were when we were young. Look at the condition of the Preference Share, regard the world at large, consider what is thought to be the noble game of Rugby in the present dismal epoch. And if you can bear to turn from such woeful ~rospects~ and glance for a moment at the younger generation, what comfort can be found? None, we asseverate. Neither in quan- — tity nor in quality are children what they

were, In our youth things were different. Consider the old woman who lived in the shoe. What did she do? She spanked them all soundly. (Hear, hear!) Remember the little poem: Father heard his children scream, So he threw them in the stream, Saying, as he dropped the third, "Children should be seen, NOT heard." But what happens to-day? Turn to 4YA’s programme for Saturday, March 7, and you will find that the child who misbehaves himself: has an orchestral composition written around the _ incident-* The Boy Who Lost His Temper," which the 4YA Concert Orchestra will present at 8.48 p.m. Composer Was Nearly Kai An opera by a man who, according to popular legend, was nearly gobbled up by our own native race will be heard from 3YA on Sunday, March 1-Mari-tana, by William Wallace. Wallace was a pianist and fiddler in his young days, but the story goes that he wandered to Australia and turned squatter. He wandered further and joined the crew of a whaler. There was mutiny on board, but Wallace escaped alive. He ventured among rebellious Maoris, and was twice within an ace of being slain and eaten. Then he returned to London, met Fitzball (Balfe’s librettist), and began writing operas, of which Maritana is the one that remains. ‘The version to be done from 3YA is like the recent version of The Magic Flute-you will hear, in addition to the descriptive text, sections of the spoken dialogue recorded by the NBS drama depar‘ment Bad Luck! We cannot understand why a talk of such vital importance to the financial well-being of mankind as Llewellyn Etherington’s: "Luck and Probability at Cards" should be heard from 2YA at 11 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, March 4. It is surely unreasonable that only housewives and the few privileged men who either have private means or

who earn their living at night should be enabled to hear a talk on a subject that affects so closely the welfare of so many of our citizens. And the man with private means can well afford to lose his money anyway, and the night-worker has far less opportunity of getting together with his pals for a spot of poker or pontoon. So we are forced to conclude that the NBS is deliberately withholding the fruits of; its knowledge from the very people who need it most, from those hard-working husbands and fathers whose nightly losses of two or three shillings represent the distance the wolf has to travel to get right inside the door. Ballad for All Listeners Listeners who heard Paul Robeson and chorus in the magnificent "Ballad for Americans" when it was broadcast in part in the special NBS programme " Hail America" on July 5 last year, will be interested to know that the same records are now being broadcast by the ZB stations. They were heard on recent Sunday evenings from Stations 1ZB and 2ZB, and will shortly be rep@ated by 3ZB and 4ZB during the eight o’clock Sunday evening session. "Ballad for Americans" is the work of a young poet, John Latouche, and of the composer Earl Robinson, and is an attempt to catch in word and music the spirit, character and philosophy of the American people. Robeson’s interpretation is outstanding. ; Naval Manoeuvres We read the other day in one of those syndicated news messages which are usually denied within a week of publication that nowadays naval engagements are carried out at extreme range and that

the opposing sides rarely get more ‘an a glimpse of one another. But after all there are naval engagements and naval engagements, and in the talk to be given from 2YA on Friday week, Mrs. O. J. Gerard will say something about getting spliced. Any doubts on that score should be resolved by her sub-title: "You Have Been Warned." And indeed we have. Not for nothing have we sung since ‘infancy that "All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor." With Knobs On In the bad old days of porters and portcullises it used to take two people to open a door, the knight or the third murderer or the post-haste boy outside, and the porter or the stooge or the Bad Baron himself inside. Even as late as

tL. nineteenth century the two-person method of opening doors enjoyed a wide popularity. The home-coming son or daughter stood outside the door and knocked and the waiting-up parent caressed the handle of his riding stock. In fact we may almost assume that the one-man method of door-operiing is tied up with the wider distribution of the latchkey and the resulting emancipation of the nineteen-twenties. However, modern science will never cease to confound us with its discoveries, and even more modern than the latchkey is the method advocated in "Bomb Doors Open," a talk to be heard from the main National Stations at 6.30 p,m. on Monday, March 2. (A further note about this talk appears on Page 20.) | There are Eels and Eels The eel is a beast which the average New Zealander does not regard with affection. He may have met it in his youth, when conveniently armed with gumboots, a spear, and an electric torch, but when he reaches the age of reason he is more likely to look on it with hors. ror as something that those strange people the Maoris would even eat. Or if he belongs to an acclimatisation society he will lc. on it as a depredator and a bad thing. A French naturalist, on the other hand, spoke of the eel’s "slender form, its delicate proportions, its elegant colours, its easy gyrations, its rapid springs, its superior swimming, its industry, its instinct, and its sociability." If you want to know what Jack Warner feels about eels, listen to 3YA, which/ will broadcast his sketch " Eels" at 8.32 p.m. on Saturday, March 7.