THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 231, 26 November 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY MONDAY evening at 8 -o’clock has been "keyboard-music time" for Christchurch listeners for some months now. After Bach’s Preludes and Fugues and some clavier works had been systematically presented at the same time each week there were Bach’s organ works. Handel’s Suites for harpsichord, and ther the series took a leap forward to the works. of Chopin. The 24 preludes were al! heard, and the Etudes, and by November it was the turn of the Mazurkas. The Nocturnes are now in their second week, and the third instalment of them will be heard on Monday, November 29, at 8 p.m. A Nocturne by the Irish pianist-composer John Field (from whom Chopin borrowed the term and style of composition) will be heard from Station 2YC at 8.45 p.m. on the following Saturday. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.19 p.m.: NBS String Quartet. 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Piano Quintet in E Flat (Schumann). 4YA, 8.12 p.m.: "Archduke" Trio (Beethoven). TUESDAY VERY recruit who joins the Cameronians, or Scottish Rifles, is given a ‘Bible as part of his kit. And to this day when the Cameronians (not to be con‘fused with the Cameron Highlanders) ‘hold a Church Parade in the open, sentries are posted, and the service does not begin till they report that all’s well. For the Cameronians descend from the Covenanters, and this precaution is a relic of the day when the Covenanters met, in peril of their lives, to worship in some hollow of the hills, and kept watch lest they be surprised. On St. Andrew’s Day, November 30, at 7.15 p.m. 2YA will broadcast a BBC talk that will have a special appeal to Scots-a history of the Cameronians, illustrated ‘with pipe and band music. The talk takes the record of the regiment up to Dunkirk, Burma, and the capture of Syracuse this year. Our Otago Regiment is linked with the Cameronians. Also worth notice: 1¥X. 8.34 p.m.: Divertimento No, 10 (Mozart). 2YC, 8 p.m.: St. Andrew’s Night Concert. pes : p.m.: "The Trout" Quintet (Schuert). WEDNESDAY (CHRISTMAS is coming, as we may hear from current A.C.E. talks, and so the musical societies are preparing Christmas music. On Wednesday, December 1, for instance, Christchurch and Dunedin people will be going to hear -oratorios that are always associated with Christmas, and stations 3YA and 4YO will broadcast them. The Dunedin Choral Society will present Handel’s Monsink, and the Christchurch Harmonic Society (conducted by Victor Peters) will do the first two parts of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio together with the "Sanctus" from his Mass in B Minor, and some Christmas Carols, three of which are arranged by Vernon Griffiths. Also worth notice: satin Sg p.m.: Sonatina in G Minor (Schu2YC, 9.0 p.m.: ‘Cello Concerto (Elgar). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 2 (Beethoven).

THURSDAY "[TALIAN violinist . .. born 1784... first public appearance at the age of 9 ... gained fame as violinist of extraordinary powers .. . retired to Paris and spent his last years giving concerts and running a gambling house ... recognised as the greatest violin virtuoso of-all time . .. invented the combination of air and pizzicato accompaniment and the imitation of guitar

slides." All this may mean nothing whatever to some of our readers-it meant nothing whatever to a recent competitor in the Give it a Name Jackpots at 2ZB, but if it had he would have won £19 for naming the famous fiddler. There is no monetary reward, however, for tuning in to Station 4YA at 9.25 p.m. on Thursday, December 2, when you may hear a violin-coneerto by this musician -Niccolo Paganini. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.16 p.m.: "The Curlew’ (Warlock). 2YA, 9.40 p.m.: "As You Like It" Music (Quilter). , 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Trio No. 2 (Tchaikovski). 3ZR, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Beethoven. FRIDAY RECORDINGS of piano music for four hands have become popular in the last few years in proportion to the growing cultivation _of this kind of music-but as for our own professional musicians (who were once described by a correspondent in these pages as "notoriously jealous, irritable, cantankerous, narrow-minded, thick-skinned, humourless, savage, and vengeful") we do not often hear of them placating each other at the distance of a mere couple of octaves. Of course there always have been difficulties of some sort--in the 18th century according to Charles Burney, "the ladies at that time wearing hoops, which kept them at too great a distance from one another, had a harpsichord made... expressly for duets, with six octaves." But just to show how easy it really is, two Christchurch musicians, Noel Newson and Frederick Page, will play Mozart’s Sonata in B flat from 3YA at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, December 3. Also worth notice: . 1YA, 8.12 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 (Brahms). 2YA, 8.30 p.m.: BBC Brains Trust. 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Sonata programme. 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Tchaikovski and his Music. 4YA, 9.29 p.m.: Readings from Pepys.

SATURDAY NE evening in November, 1939, an audience of 600 New Yorkers who were listening to an item on the Pursuit of Happiness programme in the radiotheatre of the Columbia Broadcasting System stamped, shouted, and bravoed for 15 consecutive minutes. In the next half-hour, 150 calls managed to get through the jammed telephone switchboard. The item was "Ballad for Americans" a poem by Edward Latouche, set to music by Earl Robinson. Latouche wrote the poem in 1935 as a sermon against intolerance and persecution, in the form of a ballad, a narrative history of the United States extolling democracy. The singer who made it famous in 1939 was Paul, Robeson, and a recording was made, which will be heard from Station 1YA at ‘7.30 p.m. on Saturday, December 4. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Bach, Purcell and Handel. 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Wagner. baie 9.28 p.m.: Sonatina in G Minor (Schurt). SUNDAY F you were the living image of Napoleon, what would you do? Form the habit of tucking one hand inside your waistcoat? Go round declaring that England is a Nation of Shopkeepers? A little man who worked in a bank and whose name was Pratt looked exactly like Napoleon, and it was all about his adventures that Val Gielgud and Philip Wade wrote a play-remembering, no doubt, that in Napoleon’s own words, "there is only one step from the s lime to the ridiculous." Their play is called "Mr. Pratt’s Waterloo," and we do hope for Mr. Pratt’s sake that no one gives him fried potatoes for breakfast on the great morning. Station 1YA_ will broadcast the play at 9.30 p.m, on Sunday. December 5. Also worth notice: hk 9.12 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 (Maher). 2YA, 2.0 p.m.: "Thus Spake Zoroaster" (R. Strauss). 3YA, 3.0-4.0 pem.: Music by Mozart.