THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 158, 3 July 1942, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

whose Sinfonia will be heard from 4YA on Thursday, July 9, was the eighteenth child of the great Bach and a well known figure in English musical circles. His musical creed is summéd up in this remark of his to a friend: "My father lived to compose and I compose to live." If that was so he did not manage very well, for he died in poverty. But since poverty is often the lot of ccmposers, the only remarkable thing about this Bach was that his pupil Queen Charlotte paid his debts and his widow’s passage back to Germany. In Black and White Lest anyone who is a keon student of the relative cir and sea strengths of the Powers should be tempted to tune into the talk on " Silhoucttcs," to be given from 3YA on Satuiday wceck by Nocline Thomson, we would point out that the silhouettes, since Miss Thomson is a physical welfare officer, are morc likely to be feminine than nautical or aeronautical. But that doos rot mcan thet the talk is not timely. It is not as easy to put a girdle round the girth in forty minutes as it was in Shakespeare's day and, now that elastic is so hard to come by, if we want to keep that schoolgirl line we must pay for it in blood and tears, toil and sweat. If you doubt us, listen to Miss Thomson, CHRISTIAN BACH, Inhuman Bondage Dean Swift (correct us if we’re wrong) once likened the universe to a suit of clothes and though few other writers have gone so far, metaphorically speaking, most of them have had something

to say about our sartorial and outward flourishes. Ken Alexander, who believes in keeping up the old traditions, is going to talk about "The Tyranny of Clothes " from 2YA on Friday week, but with so much raw material in the rationing regulations we think gymnosophists should be warned that the broadcast is not likely to be their cup of tea. Tan-tan-tivvy-tally-ho! Lest credulous readers should allow themselves to be so misled by our artist as to imagine that the A.C.E, proposes

to revive the controversy about corporal punishment for the benefit of some critics on the hearth, we would point out that "Tanning at Home," the A.C.E, talk from 4YA on Friday week, is much more topical and practical. Have you a cat that would look better as a coupon-free coat-collar or would Junior’s white rats look more attractive masquerading as an unrationed eveningwrap? Does Father need a new pair of moleskin trousers? If the answer to these vital questions is in the affirmative, listen carefully to the A.C.E. and learn something about the Skin Game.

Almost Anything But It may be that music is the food of love.and that jazz is part of the diet, though there is disagreement as to whether it is a vitamin part or the starchy part that all good dietitians tell us to reject if we are to keep in health and figure. De Groot was one who drew his skirts aside and hurried on at the approach of jazz: in fact he once described it as the black man’s revenge on the white. So while we may expect almost anything from de Groot’s violin in his selection of popular melodies "Other Days," to be heard from 3YA on Thursday, July 9, at 7.30 p.m., we need hardly expect jazz. Sigh No More At first sight the programme of songs to be heard from 3YA on Monday, July 6, at 8.9 p.m., sounds rather like the despairing effort of the leader of a community sing. They begin on the hopeful note "To a Nightingale," and "Sing, Break Into Song," and then continue with "Sigh No More Ladies," and end on "Peg Away." But when we look further we see that the items are part of a studio recital by Miss Phyllis R. Hill (mezzo-soprano). The more carefully you listen to her the more foolish you will think this note. Spies A. and M. The beautiful spy steals the susceptible subaltern’s papers. Her name is either Sonia or Mitzi and she has a tiny jewelled revolver. She wears a lot of black, and addresses generals and waiters as "mon ami." That was the spy of stories about World War 1. But to-day? Alas! To-day’s spy might be anyone from Lord Whosis to the grocer; and as for the beautiful female spy, she’s probably now in uniform. But spy thrillers are still very popular, and none more so than Coast Patrol, which is now being broadcast from 2ZB on Sundays at 7.30 p.m. (as well as at 6.30 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays).