THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 211, 9 July 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY TINY shack almost buried in snow on the prairies of Alberta .is the scene of some of the "Canadian Reminiscences" that Freda Allin is telling 3YA listeners about in a series of talks, the second of which will be heard at 11.0 a.m. on Monday, July 12. No place for a honeymoon, yet it was here that Mrs. Allin first cooked breakfast for her husband, with the bread frozen so hard that no knife would cut it until it was thawed. She will tell her listeners in subsequent talks of the joys of living behind opaque windows the whole winter, spending days. and nights alone while .her husband went by sleigh to collect supplies, waiting for blocks of snow to melt on the stove for a bath, and her first attempts to make her own bread. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.26 p.m.: Quartet in C, Op. 59 (Beethoven ). 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Piano Quartet, Op. 16 (Beethoven). 2YN, 8.0 p.m.: Tchaikovski Symphony No, 3. TUESDAY

HERE was a time when it was thought! that your intellectual capacity depended on the size of your head, but then some alarming similarities in the cubic capacity of the craniums of philosophers, criminals, and mental defectives made even the swollen-headed pause. We know that Nature abhors a vacuum, but she does not much mind what she uses to fill up the great empty spaces of the skull. Differences in intellectual capacity may be due to other things: the fluid that "lubricates the brain, for instance, which according to that Victorian, Henry Thomas Buckle, "ig more abundant in women than in men, in old men than in adults, and is very abundant in idiots." It may be due to nerves, to the knobs on the spinal chord, to one’s capacity for eating fish or the brains of enemies. But while the physiologist can tell us little about the difference between the grey matter of an Einstein or a Jack the Ripper, the psychologist comes to the rescue with a neat grading system by which Tom, Dick and Harry’s I.Q, can be measured. If you don’t believe us, listen on Tues-" day evening, July 13, when G. W. Par- kin will give a talk from 4YA on a Recent Theory of Intellectual Capacity. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.39 p.m.: Variations on a Theme by Haydn (Brahms). 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: June Harris, singing old English songs (studio). 3YA, 8.15 p.m.: ‘Regimental Flash; The South African Scottish." WEDNESDAY NE of the peculiarities of the Englishman to his Continental fellows is his delight in nonsense. When the German quotes Goethe or the Frenchman Victor Hugo, the Englishman will reply with Edward Lear or Gilbert or Lewis Carroll. But this does not mean that | writing nonsense comes easy to us. It means merely that it is occasionally possible. How could we expect a logical people like the French to laugh at "You are old, Father William," or "The Walrus and the Carpenter"? But we English go one further. We not only write nonsense and talk nonsense, but we even set nonsense to music and sing it over the air.

You may hear some of Lewis Carroll's nonsense songs from Alice in Wonderland on Wednesday evening, July 14, from 2YA studio at 8.33 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.43 p.m.: Songs by Sibelius. 4YO, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony by d’Indy. THURSDAY IME, which often glorifies the unworthy and debunks the glorious, has with the help of Charles Laughton and others, dealt somewhat unkindly with the First British Dictator, Henry VIII, cd

Perhaps it is that having outlined the danger, we can afford to smile at the ludicrous. For Henry was not only powerful: he was also popular. He was handsome, an athlete, and a scholar. He could hunt, ride, and entertain with the best. And among the royal rakes of 16th Century Europe he does not by any means deserve the reputation which his adventures in matrimony later gave him. Perhaps the "Henry VIII." Suite by Foulds (3YA, Thursday, at 9.25 p.m.), may do him more justice than time or Alexander Korda. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.43 p.m.: Contrasts (Bela Bartok). 4YA, 8.40 p.m.: Facade Suite (Walton). FRIDAY PROGRAMME that has brought many appreciative letters to the NBS is Rivers and Lakes We Sing About, recently heard by 2YD’s listeners, and now running in the women’s sessionsnamely from 4YA next week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The series takes in anything from the Serpentine ("There’s a Lovely Lake in London"), to the Mississippi ("Ol’ Man River"). The Ganges, the Blue (or rather, dirty grey) Danube, the Jordan, ‘and the Thames are rivers that the narrator of this series may visit, the lakes of Killarney, Loch Doon, and-need we mention it?-Loch Lomond. The fourth of the series will be heard from 4YA at 11.0 a.m. on Friday, July 16. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 p.m.: Peter Cooper, piano (studio). 3YA, 8.33 p.m.: Organ recital (Dr. J. C. Bradshaw), SATURDAY REAT music-not great music in the accepted sense, but music that is great because it pleases the millionswill come to the listeners of Station 3YA in a series of programmes prepared by the Special Service Division of the American Office of War Information. America draws on many sources of supply (including her own), for the music that pleases her millions, and as

her concert platforms and opera houses enjoy the presence of famous artists from every European country, so a programme like "Great Music" brings together names such as Irving Berlin, Johann Strauss and J. S, Bach, and such popular tunes as "La Golondrina," "The Flight of the Bumble Bee," and "Home on the Range." The first of the series will be heard from 3YA at 7.30 p.m. on Saturday, July 17. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony No, 6 (Sibelius). 4YZ, 9.28 p.m.: Mozart’s Requiem Mass. SUNDAY EFORE many more years have passed, the average man (who, according to Stephen Leacock, has threequarters of a wife, two and a-half children, and lives in the middle of the English Channel), will have forgotten that there ever was a place called St. Petersburg. The name of Leningrad has so completely overshadowed the associations of the original name, that the latter sounds exotic and other-worldly. But to recall some of the names of music and musicians connected with St. Petersburg’s Opera House-the Mariinsky Theatre — is to recall things that are familiar to most radio listeners, "Prince Igor,’ Feodor Chaliapin, "Eugene Onegin" are names that went on the billboards in the days of the Mariinsky Theatre. And since that theatre gave place to the Grand Theatre and the Little Theatre, Leningrad has listened to new music- Szostakovich (whose Lady Macbeth of Mzensk got him into trouble there). Prokofieff and Dzerzhinsky. A programme in the series Famous Opera Houses of the World will be devoted to St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, July 18, from 2YA. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.33 p.m.: The Band of the 5th Infantry Brigade, Second N.Z.E.F. 3YA, 3.0 p.m.: "Cello Concerto (Elgar).