THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 237, 7 January 1944, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

TUESDAY Two compositions by Australian composers will be presented from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11. One is "Pacific Image," written by John Gough, an Australian who has lived in England for some years, and who gives this explanation of his work: "I had long been feeling that many English eyes were unable to see much farther than the Suez canal. .. . I wanted to explain to my English colleagues that the Pacific, a third of the world’s surface, was not just a big blank space with an island here and there, but a sea with a million islands, many’ uncharted or so small as to be impossible of indication on ordinary maps... . The idea began to brew that I might attempt to show the feeling of . the Pacific by using the method of melo-drama-a combination of music. and spoken word, in a rather special way... . I found what I needed-two short passages from the Psalms, two short passages from Ecclesiasticus and Ecclesiastes, and a longish passage from Walt Whitman." Also worth riotice: 1YX, 8.9 p.m.: Piano Concerto in E Flat (Mozart). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet No. 1 in F Major, 18, No. 1 (Beethoven), (First of series.) WEDNESDAY

TRE mountains look on MarathonAnd the Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free. Well it isn’t free yet, but "Greek Testament," a BBC programme to be heard from 2YA at 9.45 p.m. on Wednesday, January 12, is meant to suggest that it soon will be. Leonidas, a Greek farmer now in the British Navy, is its central figure, and he recounts his own happy memories of peacetime Greece-the big harvest of 1939, when he was thinking of getting married, the launching of his brother-in-law’s fishing boat, the arrogant speeches of Mussolini demanding the Mediterranean. and the first Nazi bombers. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.30 p.m.: Pieces from the works of Bach (studio violin recital). 3ZR, 9.30 p.m.: Music by Purcell. 4YO, 9.0 p.m.: ’Cello Concerto by Kraft. THURSDAY FOR saying that the Sitwells (Edith, Sacheverell and Osbert) were "literary curiosities" and that: "oblivion has now claimed them," an English paper had to pay £350 damages to each of the writers concerned. So when a song by Edith Sitwell, set to music by William Walton, appears on 2YC one night and then turns up on 4YA the following night (Thursday, January 13), in orchestral guise with nothing left of Miss Sitwell’s work but the title "Old Sir Faulk," it is not to divert your attention from that litigiouslyminded poetess that we recommend the 4YA broadcast rather than that from 2YC-it merely happens that we have already written about another item on the Wednesday. "Old Sir Faulk" is part of Walton’s second "Facade" Suite, and is a witty piece of music in which a serious composer exhibits the dexterity

with which he can parody jazz. It will be heard at about 7.40 p.m., conducted by the composer. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet in B Flat Major, ae: 130 (Beethoven). 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet No. 1 (Fauré), 4YA, 9.25 p.m.: "Emperor" Concerto (Bee--thoven). FRIDAY ‘THE appearance of a fifth symphony by a contemporary composer is regarded in the musical world as something of an event-perhaps because of the number of fifth symphonies that have been for one reason or another more popular than their fellows of

different numbering. The English composer Vaughan Williams released his fifth symphony last year, and now New Zealanders will be able to hear the fifth symphony of an American, Roy Harris, It has been recorded by the U.S.A. Office of War Information, played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Koussevitzky conducting, and will be heard from 1YA at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, January 14. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.30 p.m.: BBC Brains Trust. 3YA, 8.0 p.m: Music by Bach. 4YZ, 8.0 p.m.: Triple Concerto (Beethoven). SATURDAY F New Zealand youth were like American youth, we could say that at 10.10 p.m. on Saturday, January 15, there would be groups of ecstatic Sinatra fans around the loudspeakers that are tuned to Station 1YA. For at that time the U.S.A. programme Your Hit Parade will feature this youth who describes himself as "a bedroom singer" and throws his fans into squealing ecstasies whenever he sings. From other stations: 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 9 (BeetSUNDAY N 1284, so we read, the town of Hamelin in Brunswick was over-run by rats. And such a plague it was that even the mayor and corporation were at their wits’ end to know what to do. Of course everyone knows the end to that story, but you won’t know the end to the modern version unless you listenin to Station 3YA at 9.22 p.m. on Sunday, January 16. Broadcast at that time is a radio play by J, Wilson-Hogg, a New Zealand playwright, entitled "Pipe Dream." Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.40 p.m.: "Variations on a Nursery Tune" (Dohnanyi). , 2.0 p.m.: "Pictures at an Exhibition" Ter 2 Pegg eae ). 3YA, Music by Brahms.