THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 207, 11 June 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through ihe Programmes

MONDAY \ NEW work by Douglas Lilburn, the Christchurch composer, will have its first radio performance on Monday, June 14, at 9.25 p.m. (from 3YA). It is a Sonata for Violin and Piano in E Flat, and there are three movements, | Allegro, Arioso and Rondo. This sonata had its first performance in Christchurch | some weeks ago, when it was played by Vivien Dixon and Althea Harley Slack, and these are the players who will present it from the 3YA studio. Mr. Lilburn’s Concert Overture, which he composed for the Centennial Matinee held by New Zealanders in London, was recently heard in the BBC Overseas Serices, when the BBC Scottish Orchestra, conducted by Guy Warrack, played it at the opening of an Empire Day programme. Also worth notice: 2YA, 7.15 p.m.: "What the World Owes to the Liberal Spirit’? (Professor L. Lipson). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: The Well-Tempered Clavier (End of series). 4YA, 7.58 p.m.: Masterpieces of Music (Dr, V. E. Galway). TUESDAY N a world in which the gentler sex have taken quite masterfully to tramconducting, van driving, and post delivering and have emerged so successfully in uniforms originally designed for the other sex, one may well wonder what, in every day life at least, is the gentler art. Is it, in point of fact, gentler to scrub floors or to sit at an office desk dictating letters? Is it gentler to be dandling or slapping infants of varying size or to be serving behind a counter, measuring, taping, or doing the everyday earning jobs? Fortunately in the literary world the arts are more clearly distinguished, Among passionate poetry, and romantic novels, hair raising thrillers, dramas of life and death, the gentler art is clearly the art of essay writing. And it is these pleasant philosophic writings that we shall hear if we tune in to 3YA next Tuesday at 11 a.m, for a talk on "The Gentler Art," by Diana Craig. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.0 p.m.: ’Cello Concerto (Dvorak). 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: Bach’s Fifth French Suite (Studio). 4YA, 7.15 p.m.: The Future Regional Townplanning (Dr. J, C. Lopdell). WEDNESDAY F George Borrow had not been six-feet-four, had white hair, and a face that made people turn and look at himhalf Greek and half Hebrew-he might still have become a linguist, but he would not have had the adventures as a tramp that in print many years later became Lavengro and the Romany Rye. Nor would English people in that case have become so romantically interested in Romany lore as he, almost alone, made them. If you have not felt his power, tune in to 3YA at 20.04 hours on Wednesday, June 16, and see what he and Mr. Simmance will do to you. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.28 p.m.: Schubert’s Songs (Studio). 2YA, 8.8 p.m.: "The White Cliffs of Dover." 3YA, 8.41 p.m.: Schubert’s Songs (Studio). 4YO, 9.0 ‘m.; "London" Sym ‘ ;

FTER four years of snubbing, the American negress contralto, Marian Anderson, succeeded recently in her battle for non-segregated audiences, and Constitution Hall in Washington was opened to the first non-segregated audience in its history. It was a triumph for Marian Anderson over the Daughters of the American Revolution, who had been her strongest opponents. Between 30 and

40 per cent of the 3844 listeners in Constitution Hall on this occasion were negroes, who sat among Washington’s social and political bigwigs, and negroes occupied 13 of the 52 "boxes. "I’m so thrilled," the singer said, "I don’t know how I feel." A short programme of recordings by Marian Anderson will be heard from 3YL from 8.45 to 9.0 p.m. on Thursday, June 17. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.33 p.m.: Violin Sonata II. (Delius). 2YA, 9.25 p.m.: 2YA Concert Orchestra. 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Gil Dech and 4YA Orchestra, FRIDAY TALE from the Gold Coast that many hearers will identify with the famous "Tar Baby" story from Uncle Remus, is one of the first "scraps" in a new BBC series, Everybody’s Scrapbook, which will begin at 2YA at 812 p.m. on Friday, June 18. It is the tale of a native who stole from a barn and was caught by means of a dummy man coated with sticky rubber tree sap; Francis Worsley, one of the producers of the series, who once worked on the Gold Coast, tells the story himself. The voice of Dr. Thomas Wood, composer and authar, introduces some songs from Newfoundland, and there is a dramatisation of Captain Cook’s 1769 expedition. Jack McLaren tells the story of his parents, who took a year to sail to Australia, and finally Sydney Burchall sings some of Sir Charles Stanford's "Songs of the Sea,’ ¢ommemorating Stanford’s birth 90 years ago. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Talk by Cecil Hull. 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Violin Sonata No. 3 (Bach). 4YA, 9.31 p.m.: Readings from John Keats. SATURDAY ‘THE sarcastic sense of humour that stood between Erik Satie and public recognition in his own time probably accounts for the fact that the radio listener in New Zealand hears so little of this French composer who gave Debussy and Ravel some of their ideas, He would write piano pieces of serious intent, and give them titles containing digs at authority or his contemporaries.

There were "Pieces in the Shape of a Pear," "Objects Seen from the Right and the Left," "Limp Preludes for a Dog," "Desiccated Embryos," and so. on, satirising some of Debussy’s titles, which he regarded as precious. From a set of piano pieces called Gymnopédies (bare-foot dances), two were orchestrated by Debussy, and a recording of these, made by the Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by Stokowski, will be heard from 1YX at 9.51 p.m, on Saturday, June 19. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.30 p.m.: Auckland Choral Society. 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Violin Concerto in D (Tchaie kovski). SUNDAY OF all Galsworthy’s plays, few had a more successful run in London than Loyalties, which may be heard from 3YA on Sunday evening, June 20, at 9.37. Galsworthy manages to win the sympathy of his listeners, not only for the public-schoolboy-gentleman-army-.hero who is also the victim of his own weakness, snobbery and impecuniosity, but also for those others who are forced by the gradually thickening web of evidence to fall back on their own loyal-ties-the lawyer to his profession, the, Jew to his race, father to daughter, and wife to husband. The truth as it appears to emerge is that loyalty is, in fact, something of a betrayal of the head by the heart, but because we like hearts and only admire heads, we are prepared to exalt this betrayal to a prime virtue. Also worth notice: : 1YA, 3.30 .m.: Concerto in D (Vaughan Williams). 2YA, 2.0 p.m.: Pianoforte Sonata in A Flat Major (Beethoven). 4YA, 9.22 p.m.: "The Beggar’s Opera."