THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 200, 22 April 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY WO musicians who were members of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal in the last years of the ,17th century, Henry Purcell and William Croft, were the composers of music which Zillah and Ronald Castle will play from 2YA on Monday, using instruments of the period. Purcell is represented in this programme by a sonata (for violin and harpsichord) written in his favourite key-G minorand three short tunes for the recorders. William Croft (the composer of the hymn tune known as Sti Anne) is represented by two sonatas, one for two recorders, the other for violin and harpsichord. (An hour of Purcell’s music will also be found ‘in 3YL’s programme for Tuesday.) Also worth notice: } 1YA, noon: Races from Ellerslie. 2YA, 7.54 p.m.: Molly Atkinson (contralto), 3YA:, 9.25 p.m.: Mozart, Trio in B Flat (studio). TUESDAY : , MODERN Pippa passing through Great Britain instead of 19th Century Italy would hardly be able to sing "God’s in His Heaven, All’s right with the world." What she would and does say we may perhaps learn from Pippa Robins in her series of talks on "Theatrical Tours through the British Isles," from 3YA on Tuesday mornings. Theatrical tours are likely to take you into all kinds of places which you might not otherwise visit, where you meet people whom you might not otherwise see. Miss Robins is now producer for the Christchurch Repertory Society. In a recent visit to England she saw much of amateur and professional and repertory work there and her talks should be of interest not only to those who act, but also to those who want to know a little more about life in England and the changes that are taking place. Also worth notice: 1YX: Symphonic Concert. 2YA: Verdi’s "Requiem." 4YA: Band Programme. WEDNESDAY N eccentricity of Nathan Milstein, Russian violinist, is his curious method of remembering telephone numbers. He doesn’t turn them into sums, . he turns them into tunes; thinking of the digits from one to nine as positions on the G string of ‘his violin he translates each combination of digits into a melody; then he has only to remember the exchange and he can work out the number from the tune he carries in his

head. According to Fritz Kreisler, Milstein is the greatest of to-day’s younger generation of violinists. He was born 38 years ago in Odessa, the son of a wealthy wool importer, and now it is the regular thing for New York critics to give him a big hand every time he plays in Carnegie Hall. On April 28, 1YA will broadcast a recording by Milstein of a Sonata by Pergolesi at 7.30 p.m. Also worth notice: 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: Military Camp Concert, 3YA, 6.45 p.m, First of Winter Course Talks, 4YO, ar p.m.: Tchaikovski’s Piano Concerto No, 1. THURSDAY "THREE of the most successful of modern experimenters in strange musical idioms, Ernest Bloch, Paul Hindemith,

and Darius Milhaud, provide the sub- , stance of a chanf®Ser music programme (1YX, Thursday, April 29, 8 p.m.) designed for those who take an interest in contemporary music. The piano quintet of Ernest Bloch, notable for having made equarter-tones acceptable to the ear, will be played with the Italian composer, Casella, at the piano; next comes Hindemith, prolific writer of useful, "‘workaday" music, with his Piano Sonata for Four Hands (two of which aré his own). Finally Milhaud, notorious for doing such frightening things as writing in five keys at once, has a string quartet, innocently labelled "in B flat." Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.33 p.m.: Hometown Variety. ra = p-m.:; Beethoven, Quartet Op. 18, ava, rer p.m.: Dvorak, Symphony No. 2. FRIDAY E hear less of the Foreign’ Legion these days than we did years ago. For one thing Hollywood has more pressing subjects. But the Foreign Legion still exists, and units of it are fighting for the Allies. April 30 is a great day in the Legion’s year, for then is commemorated an heroic fight in Mexico eighty years ago. A surrounded detachment kept the enemy off for a long while, and then agreed to surrender on honourable terms. When these were agreed to, a corporal and two men marched out. Every April 30 since then the story of this fight has been read to the Legion on parade. This | April 30, 2YA will mark the anniversary with a special Legion feature recorded by the BBC, which tells the story of the Legion and sets forth its characteristics, and since French help has been co-opted, we may take it that the facts are correct. A unit of the Legion, as we will hear on the 30th, fought by the side of the :

British at Narvik, in this war; was evacuated to France, only to, be greeted with the armistice; escaped to England; was transferred to the Cameroons under de Gaulle’s flag; and helped us to conquer Italian East Africa, Legionaries are now fighting with us in Tunisia. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.25 p.m.: Beethoven Piano Concerto (studio). 2YA, 8.35 p.m.: "Prairie Pictures." 3YA, 8.21 p.m.; Ernest Jenner (pianist). SATURDAY F all the books» that we read and forget those that probably «remain r ost vivdly with us are the ones we read in our earliest youth. That is why few people ever forget fairy tales. So we may listen on. Saturday evening (May 1) to the Suite by Engleman, "Tales from a Fairy Book," played by Gil Dech and the 4YA Concert Orchestra, with an enjoyment that is partly escapist and partly nostalgic. The stories represented by the music are Babes in the Wood, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella and Ali Baba. Also worth notice: 1YA, 12 noon: Ellerslie Races, 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: The Chorus Gentlemen. 3YA, 8.0 p.m.: Harmonic Society Concert, SUNDAY ERALD HUGH TYRWHITT WILSON (or Lord Berners) has been, since he left Eton College, composer, painter, writer, linguist, and diplomatie attache, but for all these activities, he was able to demonstrate to two modern composers, Stravinsky and Casella, that he was no mere dabbler in musical compositions, and the former gave him lessons. His ballet, "The Triumph of Nep~ tune" (1926), which 1YX will broadcast at 9.44 p.m. on Sunday, May 2, was a piece in the mode of the English pantomime, in a setting designed on ‘the oldfashioned "penny plain, twopence ¢oloured" toy-theatre style enthusiastically described in an essay by Robert Louis Stevenson, Its music is in the satirical, parodising vein. Also worth notice: . 2YA, 8.5 p.m.; NBS String Orchestra. 3YL, 8.45 a.m.: Scarlatti Sonatas. 4YA,- 8.0 p.m.: Mozart, Divertimento in D.