THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 164, 14 August 1942, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

fears for the success of his film if it does not work up to a grand climax of galloping horses, crashing aeroplanes, or smashing furniture, so the French musician of the 19th century hesitated to compose an opera that did not include a ballet, however incongruous this might be to the main trend of the opera. It is almost as surprising to find a ballet in the opera "Hamlet" as it would be to find Hamlet’s soliloquy in a slapstick ‘comedy, but the ballet is there, as custom demanded, as a _ divertissement from the serious tone of the rest of the opera. And it is complete with dance, pantomime, valse-mazurka, and polka. You may hear this ballet, "The Festival of Spring", played by the 2YA Concert Orchestra with Leon de Mauny conducting, on Thursday, August 20, at 9.25 p.m. A Question of Colour? One can appreciate the dilemma in which Miss Valerie Corliss may have found herself on meeting two Russiansa dilemma which she will perhaps explain in the next talk in her series "Little Adventures in Music." One would need to find out whether the gentlemen (tovarishi these days), were white or red, If both were of the same colour, things would not be so bad, but imagine the dilemma if they were not! One would have to remain w'th arms crossed like the hero of The Beggars’ Opera and murmur "How happy might I be with either!" However, since the adventures are musical adventures, perhaps these Russians entertained Miss Corliss with some of those fascinating double-knee-bend dances or with Volga songs, You will hear what really happened if you listen to Miss Corliss herself from 2YA next Tuesday, August 18, at 11 a.m, Reading Backwards Like some others of its kind which we have come across recently, the title of the studio feature, "What Our Ancestors Read When They Were Children" (3YA, Friday week), errs if anything in the magnitude of the field of investigation it opens up. Of the making of books there is no end, and (if our artist is to be believed) there is hardly any beginning either. And when you recollect that ancestors march not merely in infinite but also in geometrical progression (special thanks to doctor, nurse, and as a Hollywood producer

Mr. Malthus), you will realise that whoever prepared 3YA’s twenty-minute session performed a minor miracle of picking and choosing. The only criticism we would, in fact, venture, is that 3YA’s unknown hero (and our artist likewise) have too readily assumed that our ancestors could read. Speaking for our own,

we suspect that they were too absorbed in the masculine pursuits of slitting weasands, reiving cattle, and wassailing or wetting the whistle, to spare any time for the effeminate business of scholarship. Play The Game, You Cads! The programme featuring the Manchester Regiment, which 2YA_ will broadcast on Monday evening next reminds us of the story told by Kenneth Western (or was it George?). At any rate, two old acquaintances who had been at Eton, Oxford and Borstal together happened to meet in later life and the one said to t’other, Where have you been all my life? And

trother replied, Why I went into the Guards, and you? To which the first rejoined, Well, as a matter of fact, I sort of trickled into the Manchesters. Pity, remarked t’other, that you were so far North. All the best people ate in the Guards, y’know. When the SergeantMajor says Eyes Right! all the eyes go to the right, just like one man, and when the Sergeant-Major says Quick March! we go serunch-scrunch, scrunchscrunch, just like one man again. Funny, said the first, it’s something like that with us in the Manchesters. When the Sergeant-Major says Eyes Right! all the eyes go to the right, just like one man, just like you do in the Guards, and when the Sergeant-Major says Quick March, we go scrunch-scrunch, scrunch-serunch, tinkle-tinkle, tinkle-tinkle. But what, said his friend, do you mean, Scrunchscrunch, serunch-scrunch, tinkle-tinkle, tinkle-tinkle? Well as a matter of fact, said the Manchester man, those are our medals. Nhh, nhh! All of which (we hope) will in turn remind you of the programme about the Manchester, Regiment which 2YA will put on next Monday evening. Bless ‘Em All Just as damme, sir, you can always tell a gentleman from a cad, so presumably you can always tell a gentlewoman from the female equivalent of the bounder,, But even if we admit that there are only two classes of men, woman in her infinite variety will require a larger assortment of possible mental pigeon-holes. We do not know with how many of the 57 varieties Miss Cecil Hull proposes to deal in her new series of talks from 1YA. She has begun, however, by putting her best foot forward and calling her first talk (to be heard at 10.45 on Saturday, August 22), "Here Are Ladies," and readers who have been waiting for many years for an introduction to what is regarded

by many as a diminishing species will therefore tune in to 1YA next Saturday morning with glad shouts of ‘The Ladies, God Bless Em." Let us hope, however, that they will reserve some of their enthusiasm for succeeding ‘ Saturday mornings and that the air will then ring with joyous cries of "Bless ‘Em All." Success Preferred Albert Ketelbey, who is reported to be philosophic about the way Fate has treated him, says that it is better to be given a civic welcome as the composer of "In a Persian Market" than to starve in a garret with a heap of unpublished symphonies. It is not often that one is dogged by the success of one’s youthful outpourings but this seems to have been the case with Ketelbey. As a boy he was made to study the piano against his will, but persuaded his father to let him become a choirboy. Frustrated love of the organist’s daughter made him give up singing at the age of 11 and take to com position. His suite "In a Fairy Realm" may be heard from 4YA on Saturday, August 22. Difficulties Overcome There’s a note of triumph in the title of the talk from 1YA, 2YA _ and 3YA, on Monday afternoon, August 17: Met at Business Meetings’. We are pleased to hear that the A.C.E. is able to meet its difficulties, for surely the meeting of difficulties is as important as the meeting of debts and as expedient as the dodging of creditors. Not, we trust, that the A.C.E. has any creditors. It has, on the contrary, a large number of debtors, if we are to believe the stofies of the hundreds of thank-you letters which flow in each day from Harassed Housewives and Mothers of Six, And, now, we suppose, the Association Secretary will have to swim through a deluge of fan-mail from Tilly the Toiler and Snowed-under Stenographer. $.0.S., P.D.Q. The A.C.E. is so consistently helpful in its suggestions that we cannot but feel that more is implied by the title of the talk from 4YA on Friday of next week than is immediately apparent. "Dressing the Younger Generation" is unfortunately not in itself much of a problem. Dressing the younger generation without doing so at the expense of the older generation most certainly is. Life was hard enough for father in pre-ration days when money or the lack of it was the sole obstacle in the way of keeping himself presentable. To-day he is in danger of discovering that not merely has his spare pair of trousers been translated into tunics for Tommy, but that he has no coupons, far less money, to replace them. Who steals our purse, steals trash, but he who robs us of our Sunday pants leaves us poor indeed. .