THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 240, 28 January 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A’ Run Through The Programmes

~ MONDAY OU may know the true story of Wat Tyler, but if you do, you did not learn it at school. The Wat Tyler of the school books is hardly a man at all, nor is the Mayor of London a man who murdered him. The only figure presented clearly enough for you to see in the school-books is the King, dashing boldly out to meet the mutineers and pacifying them by his generosity and courage. In fact the King was then fourteen years old, perhaps a little younger, and about as capable of ruling an angry mob as the modern boy of fourteen would be of captaining the Queen Elizabeth. You may get a hint of the truth if you listen carefully to 2YA at 7.30 p.m. on Monday, January 31, when Wat Tyler will be presented in the Fighters for Freedom series. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.15 p.m.: Basic Forces in American Life (Professor Allan Nevins). SYA, 9.25 p.m.: Violin Sonata by Mozart (Studio). 3ZR, 9.25 p.m.: Symphony No, 4 in E Minor (Brahms). TUESDAY OR those who «feel that broadcasting has reached its highest point of usefulness when it brings the music of Beethoven into their homes (and we believe they exist), the evening of Tuesday, February 1, will be a satisfying occasion. For Auckland listeners there will be the Ninth Symphony, broadcast by 1YX after the 9 p.m. chimes. Wellington listeners, and probably a good many others elsewhere, will be able to hear the "Pastoral" Symphony from 2YA at 8.24 p.m., and in Christchurch, Station 3YL will present at 8 p.m. the fourth in its regular series of Beethoven quartets, the Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4. Station 4YO Dunedin, will broadcast the string trio in G Major, Op. 9, at 9.36 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.24 p.m.: Mass for Five Voices (Byrd). 2YN, 8.30 p.m.: "Les Sylphides" (Chopin). 4YZ: 9.30 p.m.: "For Me and My Gal." WEDNESDAY "ME: PEPYS’S MUSIC," the first instalment of a BBC series, "Men and Music," to be heard from 2YA at 9.45 p.m. on Wednesday, February 2, should be a fascinating programme, if it includes that memorable piece of incidental music Pepys heard at a play in London: "the wind-musique when the angel comes down, which is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with wife; that neither then nor all the evening going home, and at home, I was able to think of anything, but remained all night transported .... and makes me resolve to practise windmusique, and to make my wife do the like." We do not guarantee that this marvellous music will be heard, but there will be other music that Mr. Pepys listened to, by Purcell and Mathew Locke chiefly, and if these are not to your taste, we can safely recommend ‘

the excerpts from his sprightly diary which have been dramatised for the presentation. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Serenade for Wind Instruments (Mozart). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: "Pacific Image" (Gough). 4YA, 7.14 p.m.: "The Cameronians’" (BBC programme).

THURSDAY t ‘ ‘THOSE who met Professor Allan Nevins during his visit to New Zealand, made on behalf of the U.S. Office of War Information, discovered that he was not merely a historian of great learning, but a man who had the saving gift of common sense. Professor Nevins understands thoroughly the difficulties in the way of getting his countrymen to understand Britain and the British Em. pire, and Britons to understand America. But that does not deter him; it only stimulates him. While he was in New Zealand he made a series of nine recorded talks as part of the job of explaining his countrymen to this part of the world, and these are being broadcast from Station 1YA, at 7.15 p.m. on Mondays and: Thursdays. The first was heard this week, the second will be heard on Monday, January 31, and the third on Thursday, February 3. Some of the titles are "What is America?" "Basic Forces in American Life"; "The War and American Society"; "The Negro"; and "America and the New World." Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.21 p.m.: "On Wenlock Edge" (Vaughan Williams). 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Sextet in A Major (Dvorak). 4YA, 8.13 p.m.: Piano Concerto by Mozart (Studio). FRIDAY ‘THE opportunity to hear William Walton’s violin concerto-his latest large work, though it was written in 1939-has been awaited by many listeners, and they should notice that a recording of it is to be heard from 4YZ Invercargill, at 8 p.m. on Friday, February 4. Much has been heard of the concerto, and its news-value may have owed as much to its early encounters with Atlantic U-boats as to the expectations aroused by Walton’s small! but distinguished output. The violin concerto was composed in England for Jascha Heifetz in America, who held a performing monopoly for two

years, and he is the soloist in the present recording, with the Cincinnati Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Goossens. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.10 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 (Kalinnikov). 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Violin Sonata No. 5 (Beethoven). 3YA, 8.35 p.m.: Violin Concerto in D (Prokofieff ) . SATURDAY ROM 2YC and 3YL on Saturday evening, February 5, Brahms lovers will be able to hear programmes including, from 3YL, the Double Concerto in A Minor, and from 2YC the Third Symphony. Auckland listeners will have three studio recitals (a pianist, a mezzo-soprano and a baritone), from 1YA, and a programme of music finishing with Stravinsky’s «"Petrouchka" ballet music from 1YX, to choose from. Also worth notice: 2YA, 11.0 a.m.: "Horseback Holiday," talk . .-prepared by Judith Terry. 4YA, 8.9 and 8.44 p.m.: Studio recital by Margaret Pratt (contralto). SUNDAY HRISTCHURCH listeners on Sunday, February 6, at 9.30 p.m., will hear from Station 3YL the first of the series, "Europe in Chains," which begins with the story of Lidice. But there are of course by this time many Lidices, scores in Crete, Greece, and Jugoslavia, and hundreds in Russia; and there will be hundreds more. It is right, if not pleasant, to learn about them, and necessary, if a little dangerous, to think about them and remember them, but nothing we may hear on the air or see on the films can be very much like the reality. In the meantime, that is just as well for Christchurch. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.9 p.m.: Symphony No. 2 (Rachmaninoff ). 2YA, 8.5 p.m.: "The Garden of Melody." 4YA, 9.22 p.m.: Symphony No. 5 (Schostakovich )