THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 145, 2 April 1942, Page 5

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

ee N Elizabethan," wrote the schoolchild, "is one who wears ruffs and plays bowls." But "Elizabethans-Then and Now" is not a reference to bowl-playing, ruff-wearing seadogs but to their milder brethren who stayed at home composing yerse and music. On Easter Monday, at 8.36 p.m., 2YA will give a series of Elizabethan songs, each with an Elizabethan and a modern setting. On the side of the Elizabethans will be Francis Pilkington (1562-1638), and Thomas Ford (whose poem "There is a lady sweet and kind" is more famous than the music he wrote for it). The modern composers are Peter Warlock, Winifred Bury, and C. V. Stanford. The singers from the studio will be Olga Burton, Ken Macaulay, W. Roy Hill, and Connie Lee. "You Play the Black. . ." "You play the black", as a contemporary novelist has pointed out, "and the red comes up". While this is no doubt true of the casino, it does not apply in the case of the piano, for which we (and all piano-players except the most modern) are truly thankful. In fact, you can play the black and the music will go round and come out, still recognisable, in the usual place. Studies for the black keys have been written by the most celebrated exponents of pianism, others have written for the white keys. Vic. Oliver, with characteristic originality, plays on the cracks in between. But we ourselves, with most run-of-the-mill average

humans, like our music checkered black and white in the best British spirit of compromise, and so we welcome "On P the Black, On the White", a session of cinema organ music from- 2YA next Thursday evening, April 9. Whoa Is You At the time of going to press we are unable to say whether Mr. Parry’s decision to make a fifty per cent. cut in tacing and trotting will be the.means of saving our skins or simply of sending that many more New Zealanders

to the dogs-if Mrs. Mary Scott is right dogs should have come first any-way-but at least it will lend topicality to Ken Alexander’s talk from 4YA on Saturday week. "’Old Your ’Orses" will be the subject of Mr. Alexander’s pontifications, by which we assume that he means ‘old fifty per cent. of them. Or does he? And ’ow can we be sure of ’olding them, hanyway (confound you, Mr. Alexander!) when, as every steeplechaser knows, you can take a norse to the water but not necessarily. make him jump? But talking of water reminds us that we (and our egregious Russell Clark) are too -blithely assuming that Mr. Parry is acting Canute to the Dominion’s flood of bloodstock. After all, a fifty per cent. cut in racing connotes a fifty per cent, cut in losses, not ’osses. And even ’alf a norse is better than no breed. Theories About Dogs A chorus of barkings, yappings, grow}ings, whinings, and bayings punctuates the NBS production Five Hundred Thousand Dogs Went to Town, which will be heard from 1YA next Sunday\ evening. There are two popular) theories about dogs. The first is that the dog is the friend of man. People try to justify their faith in dogs by instancing the dog giving the alarm when the house is burning, the St. Bernard rescuing the traveller from the snow, the sheep-dog co-operating with the farmer, and the huskie going with Bryd to the South Pole. The second theory is that the dog is intelligent. An attempt is made to prove this by quoting cunning instances of dogs which fetch evening’ papers, know when it’s bath day, and fetch sticks thrown into the water. If a dog were really intelligent he would know that the evening paper didn’t have any news in it anyway, that it is necessary to keep clean in the interests of health, and that the water was cold and the stick had no intrinsic value and that

therefore the owner didn’t want it back, It is therefore refreshing to find a play that presents an entirely rational view of the dog question. It concerns three people who offer a reward of £5,000 for a wonder dog. This is, of course, the cue for the five hundred thousand to go, or get taken, to town. And the play seems to prove conclusively (1) that the dog is not always a friend to some men, and (2) that no dog is ever intelligent (except to his owner). Puzzle Picture We suspect that our artist must either be one of these new-fangled archery enthusiasts or else that he has been drawing the long bow of his own imagination. How else explain this drawing, produced in answer to a request that he illustrate the session "More Than One String To Their Bows,’ an episode which may be heard from 1YA on Sunday afternoon? Except that they both use bow-strings and that both are likely to break them at awkward moments, what possible connection can the agitated violinist have with the Robin Hoodish figure which is regarding him rather disdainfully from the background? Unless, of course, the sub-title of the session supplies a clue, It is "Versatility in the Arts’ and it deals with musicians who have been authors, authots who have . been

attists, and artists who have been, well, musicians -in short with people who, rather ungrammatically, have had more than one string (singular) to their bows (plural). So the inference we may be supposed to take from the illustration is that Robin Hood, besides being a hot shot with the feathered shaft, was also fairly versatile in the arts of baronbaiting, sheriff-stalking, purse-lifting, and Maid Marian-wooing. . Who Was Who? There is high authority for the duty to praise famous men, and Bridging the Centuries, three programmes the third of which will be heard from 2YA next Sunday, April 5,’is a reminder of a mixed and interesting bag of men and women whose centennials, bi-centennials, quar-ter-centennials, and whatever the word for a 500th anniversary is, fall in the year 1942. The names of not all of them will be familiar; many belong to the

great group of "obscurely great,’ who play their contemporary part in the arts and sciences but leave neither a heavy nor a spectacular footprint in the sands of time. There are scientists, physicians, revolutionaries, sportsmen, painters, writers. In fact, as many callings and occupations as you have plum stones on your plate. There are one or two New Zealanders; also newspapers and other institutions. So if you want to find out. who was just starting to be who in 1842, you had better tune in to Bridging the Centuries. Darkling We Listen It would be interesting to know which particular nightingale is being given the spotlight by 1ZB at 5.15 p.m, next Tuesday. The programme says simply, "Tales and Legends: Story of a Nightingale," and leaves it at that. Was it the one which charmed magic casements for John Keats? Was it Robert Bridges’ bird? Or Omar Khayyam’s, which, possibly because of faulty diet, had a yellow cheek? Or one of T. S. Eliot’s nightingales which sang to Sweeney by the Convent of the Sacred Heart? There are so many of these much-publicised birds, in legend and in literature, that there has been a tendency of late to debunk the nightingale. Someone has very properly pointed out that in sober daylight it is a poor sort of bird and its song not to be compared, for instance, with that of the New Zealand tui. However, no hungry generations can tread it down.