Around The Nationals

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 144, 27 March 1942, Page 20

Around The Nationals

sel HE PASSION, according to St. Matthew, now universally accepted as one of the noblest of musical masterpieces, was first sung at St. Thomas’s, Bach own church at Leip- | zig, on Good Friday, 1729. At the time the composition was not appreciated at its true worth, for it was not for a hundred years that it was heard outside Leipzig. In 1829 Mendelssohn ended this neglect by conducting a performance in Berlin on the occasion of its centenary. Now it is sung and played throughout Christendom as the most eloquent and beautiful presentation of the story of the Passion. The Passion may be heard from 3YA on Good Friday, April 3, at 7.30 p.m., relayed from Christchurch Cathedral. ISTENERS may be glad of the opportunity of hearing the New Zealand musician, Ivor Weir (whose photo. appears on this page) in the BBC Pacific programme on Monday, March 30, at 9.30 p.m. (New Zealand time). He may also be heard from time to time in the Pacific Starlight programmes which he arranges. Ivor Weir was a leading pianist for the Diggers’ concerts and toured the world with them After the last war. Now he devotes much of his time to hospital end Services club concerts. JN 1928 Richard Crean went to the " London Palladium, but he had to go round the world to get there. He began his career by studying harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, piano, and violin at the Irish Academy in Dublin. In 1912 he went on a world tour with the Quinlan Opera Company. On his return he played in places as various as Covent Garden, St. James’s Theatre, and at the popular Tango Teas of the Four Hundred Club in Bond Street, and later in a variety of places with the Gulliver Circuit. This is the kind of training that lies behind the excellence of his orchestral recordings. Two of these may be heard from 1YA on Monday, March 30, at 9.39 p.m. [Tt is not easy to decide whether the. " Lancashire dialect is funny in itself or whether it is just Stanley Holloway’s renderings of it that make it one of the most delightful instruments of humour. At any rate Sam is well known enough to have inspired a lengthy poem, the first four lines of which read: "You've heard of what Sam Small "as done In various kinds of places, From dropping gun at Waterloo To dropping cash at races." To which we might reply "We ’ave an’ all,’ and we can look forward to hearing him again from 4YA on Tuesday, March 31, at 8.24 p.m.