THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 210, 2 July 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

| A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY "| HE boar’s head in hand bear I," as it has been sung every year at Queen’s College, Oxford, for several centuries, is the oldest printed English carol. Plenty of its companion songs have survived from the period when Latin was ceasing to be universally understood, and English verses ranging from crude doggerel to excellent poetry were being devised for all sorts of religious occasions. The Boar’s Head Carol is, therefore, according to Percy Scholes "but one aristocratic member of a large number of carols that are associated with good cheer as an element in Christmas joy." It is sung at Queen’s College as the traditional dish is borne in, and was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde (Caxton’s apprentice and successor), in 1521. The Dunedin Lyric Choir (conducted by John T. Leech), will include it in their programme to be heard .from 4YA on Monday evening, July 5. Also worth notice: ‘2YA, 8.17 p.m.: Schubert Quintet (Studio). 3YA. 9.43 p.m.: Violin Sonata (Leo Weiner), TUESDAY RE conventions necessary? This is the question that S. P. B. Mais asks and answers in his BBC talk from 2YA on Tuesday at 11,0 am. As Mr. Mais, judging by his books and talks, is an unconventional person, we trust that his answer will be "yes," for however much you and Mr. Brown may condemn conventions as a substitute for thought, where would our Bernard Shaws and Potocki de Montalks be if there were not Mrs. Grundy to shock? After all, those who find doing and saying the right thing only a little irksome, ought to allow the pleasure of being eccentric by contrast to those who really enjoy wearing purple velvet cloaks, eating raw meat, sleeping with feet stuck out into the chill of a frosty morning, or wearing bathing togs to a state banquet. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.30 p.m.: Margaret Simm (pianist) (Studio), 3YA, 8.3 p.m.: Maitland McCutcheon, violinist (Studio), WEDNESDAY ; |? could truly be said of the actor’s art. before the introduction of the gramophone and the talking film, that it was writ in water. Only memories remain of portrayed passion and charm, of personal beauty and golden voices, But memories of the stage mean something, and they have been put into lasting form by masters of words from Samuel Pepys and Charles Lamb to Maurice Baring and James Agate. And biographies and memoirs throw a lot of light on great personalities of the stage, Miss Pippa Robins, who has had @ stage career in England, and is now producing for the Christchurch Repertory, is to give a series of six morning talks at 3YA on "Great Figures of the Stage." Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Sextet in G (Brahms). . 3YA, 6.45 p.m.: "Understanding the Child" (Talk by Dr. H. E. Field). 4YO, 8.0 pm: "Jupiter’ Symphony (Mozart). THURSDAY STATION 4YA is going to see to it that the Home Gardener is not merely in the front line of the Home Front but that he is recognised for the courage

and ingenuity necessary to a Home Frontiersman. The easy-going flat dweller, menaced only by a few rats or a bookworm or two, little knows of the "Perils of Gardening" that lie in wait for the householder when he steps into his weekend world of cabbages and carnations. Yet round every trembling leaf lurk slugs, on the lawn the wireworm raises

his ugly head, while the green caterpillar buries his teeth deep into the tender heart of a young cabbage. All this is incidental to diggers’ back, trenchers’ tummy, mowers’ moan or gardeners’ jargon, which are liable to turn even our best friends into a pain in the neck. Of this and more we shall hear if we tune in to 4YA at 11.15 a.m. next Thursday (July 8). Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.15 p.m.: Winter Course Talk on Music by H. C, Luscombe. 2YA, 9.25 p.m.: Peter Cooper, pianist (Studio). FRIDAY OP HATS, bullock waggons, rustling taffetas, cob cottages, bread ovens and long distances-these are some of the things we expect to hear about when anyone begins td talk of the pioneers; and our artist seems to have his head full of the idea of top hats, at least. But on Friday, July 9, at 7.30 p.m. from 1YA we may hear an overture called "The Pioneers,’ by the New Zealand composer and pianist, Henry Shirley. The composer will conduct the 1YA Studio Orchestra, augmented for the occasion, Mr. Shirley, who received his musical education in London and Vienna, tells us that he completed the overture during the last Christmas holidays. He says: "The work has an introduction creating the atmosphere of an immigrant ship making a landfall; and the subsequent allegro , develops contrasting themes depicting the struggles and recompenses of pioneering days." Mr. Shirley has already had several of his compositions, including a string quartet, broadcast from 1YA. ~ Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.0 p.m.: Peter Cooper, pianist (Studio). 3YA, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Handel and Bach. SATURDAY OETHE’S Faust became opera at the hands of Gounod, Spohr, Berlioz, Boito, Lassen, and Zoellner; Ferruccio Busoni wrote a Doktor Faust, but based

it on the old German puppet play, and two composers who turned the drama into symphonic music without the help of the stage were Wagner-"A Faust Overture" and Liszt-‘A Faust Symphony, in three character pictures." In the first "picture" Liszt "attempts to apply the quality of universality to the suffering, the dissatisfaction, the jaded impotence and weariness of Faust" (according to Charles O’Connell). In the second he portrays Marguerite, and in the third Mephistopheles. Here the music is marked ironico, and Mephistopheles sneers and sniggers and eventually rocks in scornful mirth before his victim. Station 3YL will broadcast "A Faust Symphony" at 9.1 p.m. on Saturday, July 10. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: The Auckland String Players, 2YC,*8.20 p.m.: Lyric Suite (Grieg). 4YA, 8.12 p.m.: Dances from ‘"Galanta" (Kodaly). SUNDAY NE instance where Mozart specifically indicated "programmatic" ideas in purely instrumental music was in his incidental music for a play Thamos, King of Egypt, written by a Viennese nobleman, Tobias von Gebler. W. J. Turner, the English poet and music critic, said of this music: "It is worth noting for the confusion of those academic minds who love strict categories, that Mozart, who is generally considered the most abstract of composers (whatever that means!), actually wrote above the themes denoting the characters in this play such expressions as ‘Pheron’s Hypocrisy, ‘Thamos’ Noble Nature,’ ‘Pheron’s Despair, Blaspherhy and Death,’ in purely .instrumental movements where there were no words, but where the dramatic situation was to be musically depicted." The first of two pieces, to be heard from 1YA at 9,57 p.m. on Sunday, July 11, is said to depict the intentions of the villains of the piece to usurp the throne, Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.33 p.m.: Peter Cooper, pianist (Studio), 2YA, 9.32 p.m.: "The Pearl Fishers" (Bizet).