THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 208, 18 June 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY FEW days ago, a message from England recalled that British workers promised to rebuild the Czech village of Lidice (which was entirely destroyed with all its 500 inhabitants on June 10, 1942), as a memorial to the spirit of its people. On Monday next (June 21), the main National stations will broadcast a programme which was given in the united States in remembrance of the village. It is called "We Refuse to Die," and stars Madeleine Carroll and Joseph Schildkraut in the chief roles of a young married couple in Lidice, with Erich von Stroheim as the German general, instructed to put all males to death, deport women and children, and burn all buildings. Commercial stations will broadcast this programme on Sunday, June 20, at 8.5 p.m. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.24 p.m.: Elizabethan Songs (Studio). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: "The Little Clavier Book’ (Bach). TUESDAY HE next of the Winter Course talks from 4YA ("New Zealand Past and Present’’), will be given on Tuesday, June 22, at 7.15 p.m., with the title "Seme Opinions on New Zealand." Most people, and unfortunately many critics, despise the Gilbertian dictum that "If you'd make your fellow, fellow, fellow creatures wise, You must always gild the philosophic pill." So we do not know whether John Moffett in his talk is going to present sweets, medicine, or gilded pills. But we hope that listening will make Otago wise and not indignant. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.28 p.m.: ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra" (Strauss). 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: Songs by Vaughan Williams. WEDNESDAY ‘THERE are people still living, it not many, who have beaten their way round the Horn on a windjammer. Some of them would even like to do it again. But not many of them, if they had read R. H. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast before they went to sea, would ever have gone at all, and it is not easy reading it to-day to believe that life at sea could be so full of misery only a hundred years ago. Fortunately, most of us forget more easily than we remember, Our parents and grandparents endured many of the things that Dana describes so brilliantly, since some of them rounded the Horn about the same time as he did, but their stories have passed over our heads and left no permanent impression, It could, therefore, be an act of filial piety to listen to O. L. Simmance reading from Dana on Wednesday evening (June 23) from 3YA, but whether piety makes us listen or the love of excitement, we shall neglect this reading at our own risk, ‘ Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: "Antar"’ (Rimsky-Korsakov). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 (Dvorak). THURSDAY OST of us have some vague picture in our minds of the battle between the Revenge, of two or three hundred tons, and a Spanish fleet of 53 ships,

including "the great San Philip of 1500 tons." If we have not read Tennyson’s ballad, we have read Froude’s "Short Study," or a paraphrase of one or the other in our school books. The action took place 352 years ago, lasted from three on one day till daylight of the next, and cost the Spaniards two ships

sunk, two disabled, eight or 10 badly enough mauled to have no further inclination for close combat, and at least 2000 seamen killed or drowned. The cost on our side was a disabled ship, half its company killed and most of the others wounded, including the commander, Sir Richard Grenville himself. But the action ended only when the Revenge had shot off all her powder. If there is not enough in those facts to fire our blood, we had better listen to Dr. Thomas Wood (on Thursday, June 24, at 7.30 p.m.), who, though he may speak of other "King’s Ships’ of the same name, will surely concentrate on this immortal story. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.15 p.m.: Winter Course Talk: ‘The "Symphony; The Scherzo’ (H. C. Luscombe). 2YA, 9.35 p.m.: Concerto in F (Gershwin). 4YA, 9.25 p.m.: "Pastoral" Symphony (Beethoven). FRIDAY O you keep a scrapbook for cuttings? Did you ever begin a scrapbook for cuttings and not keep it up? So many of us start but don’t go on. But the hobby pays, not only in personal satisfaction, but sometimes in other material respects. Arthur Mee, founder of the Children’s Magazine and the Children’s Encyclopedia, who died the other day, is recommended by old journalists to young journalists as one of the most painstaking of all keepers of cuttings. His big collection helped him to gain fame and presumably fortune. Well, 1YA is going to give listeners a glimpse into a New Zealand scrapbook shortly, Miss Cecil Hull, whom listeners already know as a wise and witty critic of books. and people and a very skilful reconstructor of the past, has kept such a book, and she is going to present extracts from it, in a series of talks from 1YA, beginning on Friday, June 18, at 8.0 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 and 8.43 p.m.: Music by Mendelssohn (Studio Orchestra). "3YA, 8.0 p.m.: Orpheus Choir (Studio). bE Sy coed 25 p.m.; "Invitation to the Waltz"

SATURDAY W ITH Fred Hartley himself on the spot as Director of Light Musie (appointed last October), the BBC has prepared a series of six programmes, "The Music of Fred Hartley," which will begin from 2YA at 7.30 p.m, on Saturday, June 26. Hartley is 37, and comes from Dundee. He had technical training at the Royal Academy of Music and then went to Stockholm to become conductor at a music hall. He has had his finger in other pies as well-he controls a laundry business in the provinces, and for a long tirhe also ran a music publishing firm, Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: "Carnaval" Ballet (Schue mann). 3YL, 9.0 p.m.: Music by Elgar. 4YZ, 9.28 p.m.: Suite for Two Pianos (Rach= maninoff ). SUNDAY BEHIND the name of Albert Schweit« zer, which occasionally appears in the musical programmes, there is the character of a man who is just as well known as a theologian, a philosopher, an African missionary, and a doctor of medicine as he is famous for his. uncommon skill as an organist, and for his biography of J. S. Bach. He was born in 1875, in Alsace, and at the age of 30 he was famous throughout Europe for his playing of Bach’s organ works. Circumstances took him to Central Africa, where he saw the urgent need of medical missionary work. Returning to Europe, he qualified in medicine, and has since been operating a hospital for the natives of the French Congo at Lambarene, with the help of money collected at special Bach concerts in Europe. An organ Fantasia and Fugue by Bach, recorded by Schweitzer, will be heard from 3YA at 3.0 p.m, on Sunday, June 27, Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 p.m.: "Turandot"? (Puccini). 2YA, 9.32 p.m.: "The Post Office’ (Tagore). 4YA, 2.30 p.m.: "En Saga’’ (Sibelius).