THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 230, 19 November 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY UR artist has gone a great deal farther back into history than we meant him to go when we asked him to show, graphically, "What Our Ancestors Ate." We suspect that he has also gone a little far for Dorothy Freed, who is to discuss this question next week in Dune-din-a rather explosive city when the subject is evolution. But if he had not gone so far back as that he might have felt under obligation to show whom our ancestors ate, and that might have beer: more embarrassing still. So we cry pax to fundamentalists everywhere and accept what he has given us. Besides if our ancestors did not live in trees, it is a little difficult to imagine where they did live when their habitat was the moist tropics, since there could have been no other resting place for them by day or by night. Anyhow, we refer you to Dorothy Freed, who will speak from 4YA on Monday, November 22, at 11.20 a.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 10.0 p.m.: Scottish interlude. 2YA, 8.10 p.m.: Piano Quintet by Brahms (Studio). 4YA, 8.15 p.m.: Cecilia Choir (Studio). TUESDAY ART of the sound track of the film Malta G.C. will have its premiere in Wellington on Tuesday, November 23 -over Station 2YA at 8.0 p.m. It is a recording of the incidental music written for the film by Sir Arnold Bax, Master of the King’s Musick, and composer of several symphonies. William Glock, music critic to The Observer (London) wrote: "In underlining the action of the picture the music was far above the average. If it seemed stale, it was infinitely less so than Alfred Newman’s or Richard Addinsell’s. Yet I could not feel that Bax had added as much to the film as Aaron Copland had added to Of Mice and Men." The recording to be heard from 2YA was made by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Muir Matheson. Also worth notice: 1Y¥X, 8.12 p.m. Symphony in D Minor (Franck). 3YL, 9.1 p.m.: Violin Sonata No. 6 (Beethoven). 4YO, 9.0 p.m.: Septet, Op. 20 (Beethoven). WEDNESDAY WELLINGTON listeners who would like to make a thorough acquaintance with the music of the Finnish composer Sibelius can do so by tuning in to Station 2YD at 8.30 p.m. each Wednesday evening. The series of programmes Sibelius and His Music will present in turn all the available recordings, with short descriptions of the music and _ its background. Already some of the tone poems have been heard, the violin concerto, some of the Romances, and "Rakastava." Each of the seven symphonies will be heard, but in some cases it will be necessary to divide the movements over two Wednesdays. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Violin Sonata by Dvorak (Studio). 2YA, 7.30 p.m.: Revue from an Air Force station. é 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 in © Major (Beethoven).

THURSDAY ONE of the problems of education in New Zealand is how to develop country talent without losing it. The brighter a country boy is the more likely he is to leave the country to seek a career in the city. The more facilities you give him for educating himself, the more doors you open for him when he

wants to leave. It is, in fact, almost the horrible truth that the best thing the State can do about him is to forget him -since it will lose him’in nine cases out of ten if it educates him, but retain him where it wants him most if it isolates him and neglects him. That at any rate would be the horrible truth if agriculture had not reached the scientific age. It now requires men of science to protect it against enemies at home and competitors abroad, and it is not therefore just a cruel joke that Professor Hudson should have labelled his next Canterbury College talk "Careers in Agriculture." There are careers open to those who qualify for them, and if you are interested, tune in to 3YA on Thursday, November 25, at 7.15 p.m. Also worth notice: : 1YX, 8.0 p:m.: Quintet in C Major (Schubert). 2YA, 9.55 p.m.: English Folk Songs (Studio). 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony No, 2 in E Minor (Rachmaninoff ). FRIDAY RITZ KREISLER, Giuseppe Tartini, Arcangelo Corelli, violinists of world fame in their own time, all had a hand in a composition that Viyien Dixon will play from 3YA at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, November 26. Three names to one com-, position smacks of Tin Pan Alley somehow, and one cannot be exactly certain how much of what we will hear will be Corelli, how much Tartini, and how much Kreisler, or whether, like some other of Kreisler’s "arrangements," it will even be 100 per cent. Kreisler, But we trust Miss Dixon to work with a good conscience, and we expect that "Variations on a Theme of Corelli by Tartini (arranged Kreisler)" will be worth the trouble that four violinists have taken over it. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: "Oxford’’ Symphony by Haydn (Studio). 2YC, 9.0 p.m.; ’Cello Sonata in F Major (Brahms). 4YA, 9.33 p.m.: Readings-Contemporary Poets.

SATURDAY \V HEN Carter the Great sawed a pretty girl in half with a huge crosscut saw, our eyes popped out of our heads; when the ventriloquist came on the stage and carried on a conversation with a puppet we were duly awed; but something has happened to magic in these latter days. It has never seemed quite the same merely to hear the ventriloquist from some unseen studio, and not know whether his mouth is open or shut while his puppet talks. There seems to be something missing too, when Mme. Jacqueline Blancquard assures us that she will play the Ravel piano concerto "solely with the left hand." Station 2YC, however, knows its business, and we do not doubt that this concerto that M, Ravel wrote for a one-armed pianist contains some other interest. Even so we still wonder whether Mme. Blancquard may not sneak in an extra finger now and then. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.9 p.m.: Commercial Travellers’ and Warehousemen’s Choir. 3YL, 9.17 p.m.: Symphony No. 7 in @ (Schubert). SUNDAY "HERE'S ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,’ and there isn’t a drop of peroxide in it." Or "This is Schumann’s Slumber Song-no snoring please." Or "When Franz Liszt got in the groove he would faint and fall right off the piano stool." " Whoever likes the boredom of listening to music to be relieved by announcements as smart as these should tune into one of the U.S.A. War Department programmes, an instalment of Great Music, which may be heard from 2YN, Nelson, at 9.48 p.m. on Sunday, November 28. Nothing to be afraid of -no boring "Masters" invade this programme, which should give every listener quite a new conception of what is great in music. He will hear "Leo Delibes, the original Kandy Kid of music," and "That can’t lose musical jockey, Peter Tchaikovski" and some of the other boys-chattily introduced by Walter Huston. Confidently recommended. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.33 p.m.: Opera: "Romeo and Juliet" (Gounod ). 2YA, 9.42 p.m. Play: "Money with Menaces." 3YA, 3.0 p-m.: Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius).