Around The Nationals

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 146, 10 April 1942, Page 20

Around The Nationals

HE story of Handel’s visit to Dublin in 1741-42 and of the first public performance of his Oratorio The Messiah, will be told on Sunday afternoon next from 2YA at 3 p.m. Handel left London a broken man, but the stay in Dublin (where many of his works were performed under his diréction) gave him a new lease of life. Two hundred years ago, on April 13, 1742, seven hundred people squeezed into the Music Hall in Fishamble Street. Dublin. Hundreds were turned away and loitered about the streets to catch some echo of the music. This public interest was the fruit of a series of concerts successfully staged by Handel. The Messiah Oratorio which they were to hear was unknown to them; but that crowd of seven hundred Irish folk was the vanguard of a cavalcade of millions. The presentation from 2YA of " Handel Goes to Dublin" will be illustrated by music from The Messiah. = * * STATION 2YD is presenting a special session on Thursdays at 8.5 p.m. It is called "Moods." It is a "mystery" session, and each week it will keep you guessing what mood of yours it is going to reflect. The more obvious possibilities are such as "In Sentimental Mood" or "In Jesting Mood," but it may equally be Thrilling, Tantalising or Adventurous moods. It may merely be an "After Dinner Mood" or, though we hope not, a "Before Breakfast Mood." _* * * HE most recent work of the New ‘Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn will be broadcast next Sunday night, April 12, when the evening service from the Christchurch Cathedral is relayed by 3YA. Mr. Lilburn has made settings for the choir there of the canticles, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, with a Gloria which serves to close each one. The organist and choirmaster (C. Foster Browne) has already used the Lilburn "Service" twice and finds that it is very popular with the choir and the congregation. In its use of modal melodies and harmony the music fecalls the sixteenth century style, but the treatment is completely individual and sincere. Each canticle is set to music directly, unaccompanied, and with no "choral. effects" and little repetition of words for the sake of musical display. _ * bod * IZET’S "Patrie Overture," which will be heard from 4YA on Thursday, April 16, at 8.46 p.m., was inspired by the sufferings of France in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. During the war Bizet wrote, "So much for our poor philosophy, our dreams of universal peace, of cosmopolitan fraternity, of human association! In place of these, tears. blood, desolation, crimes without number and without end. I am not able to tell you into what sadness these events plunge me. I- remember that I am French, but I cannot forget that I am a man and this war will cost humanity 500,000 lives." This overture was Bizet’s first real success,