THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 189, 5 February 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

EXT Sunday afternoon (February 7), the members of the Wellington Dickens Fellowship will present "A Tribute to Dickens" from 2YA. This programme will include a sketch of the life of Dickens, and extracts from his writings as well as some of his less known comments on topical questions, such as England’s relations with America. It must be remembered, however, that Dickens was feeling sore at his inability to get American rights over his books, and that the American public was also feeling sore at what he said about them in Martin Chuzzlewit. Nevertheless; his remarks on AngloAmerican Co-operation read well to-day. He believed that the two Englishspeaking nations should go ahead hand in hand or even hands in pockets-each other’s, of course. Who Wants a Name? We do not know as we write this paragraph what "My Lady" is going to be told from 1YA next Wednesday morning about namesakes. We almost do not want to know, since names can be life-long torture. Think of all the victims of romantic parents who have slunk through the world as Caesars or Lincolns or Hannibals or Haigs, doomed before birth to ridicule. Yet the name problem can be so easily solved. An American Serviceman who gave evidence in one of our Courts recently was able to say that he had no Christian names at all-only two letters from the alphabet. The reform has endless possibilities, and if some of these are not offered to "My Lady" at 10.20 on the morning of the 8th, we shall suspect vésted interests. In 1939 Though most people know all they want to know about the mind of the Nazis to-day, some people still cling to the generous-hearted, soft-headed delusion that the Nazi was not a Nazi till the world made him one. Before the war started, they say, Hitler and his associates could have been made into good neighbours if their own neigh- — bours ‘had shown more patience and imagination. Well, here is H. J. Laski’s idea (borrowed from Santayana), of "Hitlerism in Two or Three Lines": the irrational in the human turned repulsive and terrible, as we see it in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape. And if you think that a fantastic and repulsive libel, tune into to 2YA at 11.0 a.m. on Saturday, February 13, to hear what a New Zealand woman has to say about her experiences in Germany in 1939, among Hitler’s early victims. Peter in the Grate Somewhere in the East End of London two wretched down-and-outs sit over a fire lit with wood that they have scrounged. As they warm themselves and eat their fisland-chips, listeners are carried through the flames and back 350 years to the house of John Evelyn the diarist. Here Peter the Great of

Russia and his boon companions ~ and smash furniture and behave in the traditional manner of the early Tsar under the influence of liquor. But none of this is seen by our slum couple, who look in the flames and see Peter Mihailov

carved on the wood and wonder who the dickens Peter Mihailov could have been -happily oblivious that they are warming themselves with a valuable museum piece. You will learn why if you listen to the play, "Flames of Gold" at 9.30 p.m. on Sunddy, February 14, from Station 4YA.

Sixty Minutes’ Worth Those of us who have experienced immortal hours in the dentist’s chair, the examination room, or even in a New Zealand Railway department waiting for a travel permit, will not appreciate the idea of time standing still. But in Rutland Boughton’s opera The Immortal Hour, King Eochaidh had no such misgivings, and searched for "the immortal hour of unworldly joy." This attempt to out-Wagner Wagner on British soil enjoyed a considerable popularity when it was first produced in London, Music from The Immortal Hour, Hassan, and Koanga (the last two by Delius), will be heard from 3YA this Sunday evening, February 7. Mr. Wm. Birde "Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men would learn to sing," wrote William Byrd, the English composer, whose tercentenary has been com-~ memorated with a recording of his Mass in Five Voices, to be heard from 3ZR at 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 10. The chief clue to the year of Byrd’s death was in his will (made in 1623), where he described himself as "nowe in the eightieth year of myne age." The choice of the five-part Mass for recording in his memory is recognition of the fact that Byrd’s church music contained his greatest achievements,