THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 234, 17 December 1943, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY HIS is the season the aphis loves. Our gardening just now is an armed combat with soap and water till all the rose bushes look like washing day, but still the aphides ooze over the garden. And when it’s not a scramble for soap, it’s a scramble for stones to squash caterpillars. It’s pleasant to dream of velvet

lawns and glowing blossoms in front of trees, but the call of the garden to us just now means simply the call of the grub. It probably means more to the Gardening Expert, as you will hear if you listen to 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Monday, December 20. His talk is entitled "The Call of the Garden." Also worth notice: 2YA, 7.58 p.m.: Violin Sonata by Franck (studio). 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Music by Grieg (studio). 4YA, 7.48 p.m.: Great Parliamentarians (Keir Hardie) TUESDAY AN we compare nightingales and bellbirds, E. L. Kehoe is going to ask 3YA listeners at eleven #n the morning of Tuesday, December 21. Of course we can, though it is a bad hour for both of them. The nightingales (if we had succeeded in establishing them in New Zealand) would certainly be silent, and the bell-birds probably so- unless the weather happened to be warm and moist and the pohutukawa early in bloom. But it is not possible in the morning or the afternoon or any other time to compare nightingales and bell-birds usefully, since one is merely a nostalgic memory in New Zealand to a decreasing number of people and the other a dramatic reality to everyone who has been in the bush. It is in fact doubtful if anyone could think of comparing them if they were both New Zealand realities, and more doubtful still if anyone would put money on the imported bird if the comparison became a bet (as it probably would). Unless radio is very unkind to nightingales they are common thrushes that sing at uncommon times — very pleasant to listen to, certainly, but arresting only because they have the air to themselves. In any case the comparison was made, and judgment given before a single Englishman had settled here. No one could have been more susceptible to homesickness than Cook and his companions when they entered the Sounds, but they did not say when that great chorus struck them, "If only these birds were nightingales!"

Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.8 p.m.: Symphony No. 2 (Elgar). 2YA, 8.36 p.m.: Centennial Commemoration of Thomas Bracken. 3YL, 9.01 p.m.: Violin Sonata No. 10 (Beethoven) (final of series) WEDNESDAY "LOVELY lovely rain, lovely lovely lovely downpour" and strings of other such onomatopoeic gurglings may surprise the listener who tunes into Station 2YA shortly before 10 p.m. on Wednesday, December 22. But he will soon realise that the voices that are crying out in praise of rain in a variety of English dialects are unlikely to mark a resumption of broadcast weather reports. And when he has looked up The Listener he will realise that they are thirsty seamen who had been adrift in a ship’s boat for nearly three weeks. The programme is a BBC feature, "Twenty Days, the story of a Ship’s Boat," written and produced by Reginald Beckwith, and it begins at 9.44 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.21 p.m.: Music for Two Violins (studio). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 in B Fiat (Beethoven). 4YO, 9.0 p.m.: Orchestral Works by South African posers (BBC recording). THURSDAY HERE is always something being praised because it happened when Grandfather was young. Probably in 50 years’ time people will speak of the

good old days when they went to pictures for entertainment instead of sitting at home watching television. Station 1YA at 7.39 p.m. on Thursday, December 23 is presenting a programme entitled "Good Old Coaching Days," which is quite in keeping with this theory. Probably if we did go back to coaching days the country would be echoing with lamentations over mud-splashed stockings, and appointments that couldn’t be kept because one of the horses lost a shoe or the back axle broke: But maybe the item isn’t meant as a criticism of motor cars but merely as light entertainment, because it is sub-titled a Novelty Presentation. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.25 p.m.: Watersiders’ Silver Band. 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Quintet in B Minor (Brahms). 4YA, 8.18 p.m.: Symphony No. 2 in B Fiat (Schubert).

FRIDAY (Christmas Eve) +OR those who intend to follow the radio programmes closely on Christmas Eve, a guide to special seasonal features is printed elsewhere. We shall not therefore say any more about them here for the benefit of shopgirls who will be rushed off their feet behind counters until the evening is well past. Or for luckier workers whose jobs finished in the afternoon, and whose reward for having spent hours in queues at railway and shipping offices is a flurry of last-minute packing and a dash to some crowded carriage or ship-board shake-down. Still, no doubt the programmes will have their listeners (the NBS seems to think so, to judge by the special provisions that have been made) and perhaps The Listener will have its readers too on that evening-to all of whom we say "A Merry Christmas." Worth your notice: 1YA, 9.25 p.m.: Great Parliamentarians (Keir Hardie). 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Sonata in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27 (Beethoven). 3YA, 7.30 p.m.: Fantasia in F Minor for Four Hands (studio). SATURDAY (Christmas Day) "THE Badjak," in case you don’t know, is a huge log that burns from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day and is the Yugoslav equivalent of the English Yule Log. To understand Christmas as the Yugoslavians interpret it, listen in to Station 1YA at 3.0 p.m. on Saturday, December 25, for a programme is being presented at that time by ‘the Yugoslav Yourig People’s Choir, conducted by Professor Moor-Karoly of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and a description of the customs of that country will be given by the Rev. Father Marinovich. The singing of Christmas carols in Yugoslav countries has always been a very serious affair, and much time is spent beforehand in preparations. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.40 p.m.: Christmas Carols of the Allies. 2YA,_ 2.0 pm.: "A Christmas Carol’ 3YA, 2.0 p.m.: "Malta G.C." (film music by Arnold Bax). SUNDAY MARGARET, Queen to Henry VI, may have heard it in 1456, Richard II. may have heard it in 1484, or Henry VII. may have heard it in 1492. And Elizabeth is pretty certain to have heard it in her reign-the "Coventry Carol," which will be sung by the Fleet Street Choir at 4.38 p.m. in 3YA’s Sunday Concert, December 26. Lully lulla, thou little tiny child By by, lully lullay. This is the refrain of the song that was sung by the women of Bethlehem (in the play acted at the Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors in 1591) just before Herod’s soldiers come in to slaughter their children. The tune you will hear dates from the end of the sixteenth century. Also worth notice: ay p.-m.: "Tales of Hoffman" (Offer AYA, 9.42 p.m.: "Good-bye, Mr. Chips!’ play). 3YA, 9.22 p.m.: Music by Australian composers (studio).