THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 215, 6 August 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY ‘THINGS may glister and not be gold, as most of us discover very young. Can they be gold and not glister? New Zealand’s answer lies on thirty million woolly backs from which every year at Jeast ten million pounds in gold would fall into the laps of our farmer if we still used gold-and sometimes half as much again. It is true that a good deal of wealth goes into the production of all that treasure, and that we shall not see the day when it comes to us for nothing, But we do not get brass for nothing, either, or tinsel, or razoos, and wool is almost as lasting as gold if we treat it with intelligent respect. Tune in to 2YA next Monday (August 9) at 7.15 p.m., and hear what A. P. O’Shea has to say by way of confirmation, Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.6 p.m.: NBS String Quartet. 3YA, 7.58 p.m.: Woolston Brass Band. 4YA, 8.13 p.m.: Masterpieces of Music (Dr. V. E. Galway). TUESDAY USIC has gone to war on various occasions since Claudio Monteverdi accompanied the Duke of Mantua as a musician during his wars against the Turks, but it takes the conditions of @ second world war to send a new symphony round the world labelled "Overseas Division, U.S. Office of War Information." It is the first symphony of the contemporary Irish-born Londoner, Ernest J. Moeran, recorded by the Columbia Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, and sent to New Zealand with propaganda and feature programmes that are now being heard from the National stations. It will be heard from 2YA at 8.0 p.m.' on Tuesday, August 10. The symphony was written, for the most part, on the island of Valencia, County Kerry, Ireland, and had its first performance in 1938, in London. There are four movements, two fairly substantial ones flanking the usual slow movement and scherzo. The conductor in the recording is Bernard Herman, and there is a brief introduction with the recording describing Moeran’s work, and this symphony in particular. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.12 96 Piano Concerto No, 4 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet, Op. 50 No, 3 4YA, 7.15 p.m.: "The Atlantic Charter and Raw Materials" (talk). . WEDNESDAY T is commonly said that music knows no national boundaries, All the same, musicians are frequently the interpreters of their own nationalism, and sometimes have worked consciously in the national cause. Paderewski did" more than bring Poland before the notice of the audiences who admired his playing. He, himself, became Prime Minister to his newly-resurrected nation. Dvorak is less well known as a nationalist, but he is said to have seen a parallel between the submerged black people of America and the oppressed people of the AustroHungarian Empire. Two of his bestknown compositions, the "New World Symphony," and the so-called "Nigger Quartet," express something of the negro idiom but something, too, of Dvorak’s sympathy with the negroes.

You may hear "The Nigger Quartet" from 1YA at 8.0 p.m, on Wednesday, August 11. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.36 a.m.: "Pictures in Melody." 3YA, 6.45 p.m.: "Do You Believe that Earth. quakes Can be Predicted?" 4YO, 9.0 p.m.: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Mendelssohn ). THURSDAY AMILY Hour ought to see the: family sitting round replete and contented after the day’s toil and the evening’s eating ready to warm Dad’s slippers and

listen to his views on the world situation. In practice it often means that Mary is out with her bloke and that Mum has to wash up, that Freddy and Jim both have prep. to do, and are quarrelling over who should use the ink first, that Gertie has left the room in a huff because she had set her heart on hearing the 2YD thriller, that Dad has decided on a stroll round to the neighbour’s to borrow an axe as the only way

to get some peace and quiet, and that the only mouselike member of the family is young Dick, who knows he will be sent to bed if anyone notices that he is up. That, at any rate, is New Zealand style. But if you tune in to 2YA on Thursday, August 12, at 7.30, you may find that geography alters cases. The family hour that evening comes from America, and is not in the least like what you are probably expecting. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.40 p.m.: Concerto Grosso for Piano and Strings (Bloch). 3YA, 7.15 p.m.: "Sheep Diseases and the Factors Them." FRIDAY "THE Burning of the House of Hades," the composition by C. Roy Spackman, which won second prize in the choral works section of the Centennial Music Competition, will have a performance in Christchurch on Friday evening, August 13, at a concert by the Christchurch Harmonic Society, which will be

broadcast by 3YA, beginning at 8.0 p.m. The work is founded on Maori legend, and depicts the descent into Hades of a band of Maoris who seek wisdom from the Prince of Darkness himself. They descend by a flaxen rope, and the owner of the flax complains that his crop has been spoilt by their cutting. The Evil One advises pulling the rope back, and when the Maoris learn of his intention to keep them in Hades, they burn down his house. The conductor of the concert is Victor C. Peters, but "The Burhing of the House of Hades" will be performed under the baton of the composer. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Veracini: Suite for Violin (Studio). 4YA, 9.33 p.m.: Readings from "Quentin Durward." : SATURDAY E do not know when the first anthropoid was pushed from plains and sea coasts on to the less fertile mountain regions, but we do know that since he first found the mountains, man has never ceased to praise them. It is true that modern man, on the whole, prefers to visit them at specially-selected seasons of the year and at specially selected places where everything possible is done to lessen the discomforts of higher altitudes. Hotels exist to warm, feed and entertain him; funicular railways provide easy access to slopes down which he may wish to ski, But the true mountaindweller loves the discomforts as well as the pleasures of mountain life, and it is of him, and from him, that we expect to hear in the programme "Mountains in Song and Story," from 3YA at 10.0 a.m, on Saturday, August 14. Also worth notice: 1¥X, 9.30 p.m.: "The Prospect Before Us" (Boyce-Lambert). 2YA, 7:30 p.m.: "Four Hands: Two Pianos." SUNDAY HE NBS String Orchestra is divided again during the absence of its conductor Andersen Tyrer, into the NBS String Quartet and the NBS Light Orchestra. The quartet, comprising Vincent Aspey, first violin; May Hyam, second violin; Frank Hoffey, viola; and Molly Wright, ’cello, will resume its practice ofplaying classical.works from the string quartet repertoire with occasional Tecitals of light short pieces arranged for it in the style made, popular by the Lener Quartet. The light orchestra, conducted as before by Harry Ellwood, will be heard on Sundays from 2YA in selections of light classical music arranged for strings. One concert will be heard this Sunday (August 8), at 2.0 p.m., and Teal at 8.5 p.m. on Sunday, August 1 Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 6 (Sibelius), 3YA, 9.22 p.m.: be "The Waters of Sorrow," by M. W. Horton. 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Opera: "Faust" (Gounod).

The serial "Alias John Freedom," a drama of the underground movement in Occupied Europe, follows "Nobody’s Island" at 2YD, Wellington. The first episode of this new serial (which is a U.S. Office of War Information programme), will be heard this Wednesday, August 4, at 9.5 p.m.