THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 204, 21 May 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY "AN women be funny, listeners are going to be asked next Monday from 1YA-and at the recklessly dangerous hour of 10.20 a.m. (one-oh-two-oh hours)! But isn’t that funny? Can birds sing? Can cats scratch? Can sailors drink? Can Parliamentary candidates make promises? Wouldn’t you laugh if you were asked ludicrous questions like those? Can you keep from laughing when you are asked if women have ever made you laugh? The question may of course be: Are women ever deliberately funny-farceurs, wits, really funny clowns? Have they contributed to the literature of humour-given us a Shakespeare, a Burns, a Voltaire? Well, we shall see. Also worth notice: 2YA, 11.0 a.m.: "A Botanist to the Rescue." 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Piano Quartet (William Walton). 4YA, 8.4 p.m:: The Cecilia Choir (studio). TUESDAY AROUND the few facts that are known of the 15th century German painter Matthias Griinewald of Colmar, Paul Hindemith wrote his opera Matthias the Painter. It was composed in 1934, and disclosed parallels between the Germany of Martin Luther and the Peasants’ War, and the Germany of the thirties. Politics were the all-deciding factor, and neither religion nor art could escape their influence. In Act Three, Matthias cries out in agony: I can paint no longer; the woes of mankind cripple my imagination and my hand. Injustice, poverty, sickness, torture — am I to share in the guilt for these by being too slack to help?" A symphony composed of portions of the opera was first heard four years before the whole opera was produced (in 1938), and a recording of it will be broadcast from 2YA at 9.33 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25. Also worth notice: 1¥X, 8.10 p.m.: Brahms’ Fourth os Syren 3YL, 8.9 p.m.: French chamber music. 4YA, 7.15 p.m.: Talk by the Hon. W. Downie Stewart: "New Historical Letters," WEDNESDAY UR artist’s attitude to engineers is not necessarily ours. To him they are figures of fun. To us they are deeply tragic figures whom opportunity has somehow passed by. For of course an engineer wants to drive an engine-or at least play round with it. That is what made him turn that way, and endure all the drudgery before he reached his goal. But what does he do? Sit on an engine? Not once in twenty times. He sits in a drain, or on a bridge, or in an architect’s office, or on the line of a road that is yet to be built. He does a hundred things before he monkeys round with cogs, and grease, and wheels, and we shall be disappointed if this great betrayal is not the subject of the talk about him from 3YA next Wednesday (May 26): at 6.45 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 80 p.m.: Ariel Choir (studio). 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Mozart: Piano Concerto in C Minor. 4YO, 9.0 p.m.: Mozart: Piano Concerto in C Major. THURSDAY "RY far the cleverest fellow among the young men." was Sir Edward E}lzar’s opinion of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. and it was endorsed by Sir Arthur Sullivan after the first appearance of "Hia-

watha’s Wedding Feast" in 1898. Col-eridge-Taylor’s mother was an English girl, his father a West African doctor who, unsuccessful in London, returned to Africa, leaving his wife and child in England. The choirmaster of a Presby-

terian Church found the boy talented and sent him to the Royal College of Music where, very poor, and "with a large circular patch on his trousers", he studied under Stanford. His choral-orch-estral works about Hiawatha and the Cantata "A Tale of Old Japan" have been performed in New’ Zealand, and his light orchestral pieces have been popular with orchestras of limited scope. A programme, "The Music of Coleridge-Taylor," will be heard from 3YL at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, May 27. Also worth notice: IXY, 8.28 p.m.:String Quartet (Debussy). 2YA, 9.25 p.m.: Claude Tanner (’cellist). 2YH, 8.30 p.m.: Music by Purcell and Bach (studio), 4YA, 9.25-10.0 p.m.: Music by Haydn. FRIDAY HERE are sound judges who would place Jane Eyre among the world’s great novels-and very near the top of the list of the best English novels. And that is another way of saying that it is bunk to define genius as a capacity for | taking pains. Hundreds of men and women have worked as laboriously over novels as Charlotte Bronté worked over hers, and emerged with nothing but damaged paper. In three cases out of four, also, the odds seemed heavily in their favour. Charlotte Bronté was poor, half educated, and almost completely detached from the world of men and women, There was nothing in her life, training or background — so far of course as the vulgar could see-that fitted her to write a masterpiece: and yet it came, and remains, and will remain as long as people read English. If you want to know what another woman novelist thought of her listen to 4YA next Friday evening (May 28) when Professor T. D. Adams will read passages from Mrs. Gaskell’s Life. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9,29 p.m.: Mendelssohn’s 5th Symphony. 2YA, 8.12 p.m.: "The Battle of Britain." 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Christchurch Competitions (demonstration concert) SATURDAY F the company of Falstaff and Don Quixote, Til Eulenspiegel, and Baron Munchhausen is Hary Janos, the picturesque central character of an opera. by Kodaly. "He is a good-tempered, time-expired soldier who sits in the vil-

lage inn, boasting of heroic deeds which he never performed, an exuberant creas tion of Hungarian folklore," says Edwin Evans, an English writer on modern music. "He believes his own stories, for in his day-dreams, they are all true." Kodaly’s opera Hary Janos was first heard in 1926, and rapidly became popular, for its vivid musical treatment of the comic subject. An orchestral suite of pieces from it will be heard from 1YX% at 9.9 p.m, on Saturday, May 29, played by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, with Eugene Ormandy conducting. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Royal Auckland Choir. 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: ‘‘Les Syliphides’’ ballet. 3YL, 9.0 p.m.: Music by Franck. 4YA, 8.17 p.m.: "Capriccio Italien" (Tchaie kovski ) SUNDAY ANOTHER recording has arrived of the famous Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, the composition which has held its position since 1924 as the most widely known work of any length by an American composer. New Zealand radio listeners have often heard the abbreviated version made by Paul Whiteman’s orchestra with the composer playing the solo piano part, and in more recent years the "definitive’’ or complete version (three sides on records), made by the Boston Promenade Orchestra and the pianist J. M. Sanroma. And at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, May 30, listeners to 2YA may hear a recording made by the blind pianist and mimic, Alec Templeton, with the orchestra of André Kostelanetz. . Also worth notice: 1YA, 8,30 p.m.: ‘Consecration of the House" Overture (Beethoven). 3YA, 9.22 p.m.: Songs by rene * a 4YA, 8.6 p.m.: Music by J.