THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 217, 20 August 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY , HERE are two men living in London who are known as Kentucky Minstrels, though one came from Alabama and the other from Buffalo, New York State. Their names are Scott and Whaley, and they appear in the programme for 2YD at 7.33 p.m. on Monday, August 23. "They’re the top and bottom of the show; they are the Kentucky Minstrels"’ was what we were told when we inquired from 2YD about these unfamiliar names. Eddie Whaley, it appears, was forbidden by his negro parents to sing the frivolous negro songs he heard in his childhood, although serious spirituals were encouraged. So, the story goes, he ran away and joined a circus. In 1901 he met another negro, Harry Scott, who had also left home with ambitions. They joined forces and found their way to England a few years before the last war. They sing and do comedy turns, and sometimes one of them-we forget which-blackens his face because he is lighter in colour than the other. For the rest of their story you must tune in to Station 2YD. Also worth notice: 2YA, 7.15 p.m.: "The Good Earth-20th Century Progress" (talk). 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: A Brahms programme, 4YZ, 7.45 p.m.: "Music of the Bens, the Glens, and the Heroes." TUESDAY HE campaign for natural foods has been going so long now that we wonder sometimes when the campaign for natural clothes will begin. It is not such a step from growing our own lettuce and carrots and parsley to keeping rabbits and rats (musquash of course) for their skins, and for those who have difficulty in getting fig trees to flourish, there is flax, which, though lacking in hallowed tradition, would certainly prove more durable. In the meantime, although we like our vitamins from oranges and carrots rather than from bottles and pills, we are prepared to ignore the back-to-the-fig-leaf movement until we hear what Dr. G. C. Billing has to tell us (next Tuesday from 4YA at 7.15 p.m.) on the raw materials that are derived from plants and trees, It is, after all, moré important to live like the lilies of the field than to look like them. Also worth notice: 1Y¥X, 9.0 p.m.: ’Cello Concerto (Elgar). 2YA, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 5 (Szostakowicz). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: String Quartet in G Major (Haydn). WEDNESDAY \ E do not know how far the Victorian Age was responsible for Tennyson or how far Tennyson was responsible, for certain phases of the Victorian Age, but whichever was chicken or egg the pub‘lication of The Idylls of the King found response in the hearts of. those who planned, built, and admired the products of the neo-Gothic revival. The Medieval Age, so called, could no more have produced the Tower of London or the Houses of Parliament than the King Arthur of the Idylis, but that, of course, is no reason why we may not hear and enjoy Tennyson’s glamourised chivalry as read by O. L. Simmance from 3YA next Wednesday evening. Fr nag en nee foes ae vorak’s Quintet in A Major 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: From a Military Camp. 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Double Concerto in A Minor (Brahms)

HE Brahms lover will have no complaint with this week’s programmes from the southern YA’s, for both 3YA and 4YA have arranged sessions devoted to this composer, with local artists contributing some items from the studio, and recordings providing the rest. Station 3YA’s selection will be found in the programmes for Monday evening, and 4YA’s will be heard on Thursday, August 26. Station 4YA will illustrate

one aspect of Brahms, the side of his genius that expresses itself through the orchestra, and the programme seems to unfold the development of a_ great musical mind. The youthful Serenade for Orchestra, the Variations on a Theme of Haydn (his first big orchestral work), the powerful Tragic Overture, and the culminating Fourth Symphony are all there, not in that order as it happens, and with a break for the news, and some songs for relief, but a Brahms programme all the same. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.15 p.m.: "Our South Pacifie Neigh-bours’’-Talk. 2YA, 9.40 p.m.: 2YA Concert Orchestra. 3ZR, 8.0 p.m.: Sonata in C, Op. 53 (Beethoven). FRIDAY ‘ HAT is Royal Fireworks Music? Royal fireworks might celebrate the chopping off of King Charles’s head or the reinstatement of his son, the birth of an heir, or the smuggling into the palace of an impostor in a warming pan. It might also be what happened over the breakfast table when King Henry VIII. considered his egg or his wife to be good only in parts. It would appear however that Handel wrote this music to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The fireworks did not stop with the composition either, and the first performance in Vauxhall Gardens was accompanied by an unseemly brawl. But none of this need spoil our enjoyment of Handel interpreted by Sir Hamilton Harty as it comes over the air on Friday evening, August 27, from 4YA. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.13 p.m.: Symphony No. 3 in D Major chaikovski). 2YA, 8.12 p.m.: Everybody’s Scrapbook. 3YA, 8.30 p.m.: Concerto No, 7 in D Major (Mozart). SATURDAY THE familiar symphonies have always been a temptation to those, people who like to show the rest of the audience how they love the music-foot-tapping in the allegros, head-wagging in

the minuets and scherzi, and in the slow movements humming. The sensible ones wait till afterwards, and for them special vocal arrangements are made, with words fitted to the melodies of their favourite: slow movements. The Largo of Dvorak’s "New World’ Symphony | is familiar as "Goin’ Home," and now the slow movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony (originally compounded, it is said, out of two Irish songs) has been fitted with words. It is a "Hymn for the Departed," called "Unto’s Earth’s Keeping." The Auckland Choral Society will sing arrangements of both the Dvorak and the Beethoven compositions in its programme from 1YA on Saturday evening, Aygust 28, Also worth notice: « 2YC, 8 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 (Beethoven). 3YL, 8 p.m.: Music by Mozart. 4YA, 8 p.m.: Gil Dech and 4YA Concert Orchestra. SUNDAY CCORDING to legend the Tsar Paul I, misread a report from a military aide, and as a result the last syllable of the name of a Russian officer (which ended as one might guess, with -ki) became joined to a Russian expletive "je." There was no such name known, but obsequious courtiers, afraid of pointing out the Tsar’s mistake to him, decided to invent an officer for it. And so was born Lieutenant Kije, for whom all sorts of comical adventures had to be invented, too. That was round about 1800. In 1933 Lt. Kije strutted across the screen in a Soviet film, and Serge Prokofieff wrote incidental music. A recording has arrived in New Zealand and will be heard from 1YA at 9.41 p.m. on Sunday, August 29. As befits one born in full regimentals in the brain of a Tsar, Lt. Kije is introduced by a cornet fanfare, the-tattoo of a military drum,’ and the shrill fife. Then follows a series of gay fanciful musical adventures, a romance, a wedding, a tavern song, and a perfectly cheerful funeral which sées the Lieutenant returned to the insubstantial stuff out of which he had sprung. Also worth notice: 2YA, 2 p.m.: Triple Concerto (Beethoven). 3YA,* 3.30 p.m.: Great C poraneous Poetry. 4YA, 2.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius).