Listening While I Work (17)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 243, 18 February 1944, Page 27

Listening While I Work (17)

By ‘

Matertamilias

N a recent New Statesman I found interesting comment on a new BBC programme: "*The Rescue,’ "’ wrote Roger Marvell, "was a poetic drama by Edward Sackville West with orchestral score by Benjamin Britten. Plays on the wireless seldom find me an indulgent listener, but this was beautiful and impressive. Not only was it a fine example of imaginative collaboration, but it marked a promising development in radio technique. In the theatre we are (or ought to be) receiving delight through two of our senses simultaneously, but the wireless can reach us through only one; so that the future of radio drama depends upon the skill used in overcoming, or rather exploiting, this limitation. Hitherto, it has been usual to rely on a few tricks that necessarily have become commonplace. The noises of trains and hooves are used to suggest movement, while a_ record of gulls screaming has become a cliché to denote the sea. In "The Rescue’ there were no such recorded effects. Music was used to paint the scenery, and also to mark the gestures."... * * * DO not know whether we are likely to hear "The Rescue" in New Zealand. I do not know whether a large listening public would appreciate it either here or in England. Probably not, if we are to believe Roger Marvell. "What business," he writes, "would ever spend money on such a work to advertise its dentifrice, its cough cure, or its potted meats? Evidently the Corporation is not lavish with such treats. But if one swallow does not make a summer, an occasional loaf is better than no bread." Here in New Zealand we have still less reasor to consider the population taste unduly, Each of our main centres has three stations: Wellington has four. If the BBC, "reduced to only two services and often content to provide only one," can provide time for original and what would be considered high-brow productions such as "The Rescue," how happily placed should we be here, with our two divisons of the broadcasting service. The production last year of Allen Curnow’s Tasman Tercentenary Poem with music by Douglas Lilburn is perhaps a comparable enterprise. The whole trend of our programmes leads me to the generalisa-tion-it may be a dangerous one-that programme organisers are afraid of offending public taste by appearing too highbrow. * * * S far as classical music goes, we are reasonably well served-though I would support those cortespondents who complain that when Parliament comes

on the air 2YC is thrown overboard and 2YD allowed to continue. But there is very little in the way of other than musical entertainment that could be described as highbrow or classical. We still depend on action, galloping hooves, and screaming seagulls. Even after 20 years, radio is, as far as acting goes, still in its infancy. We are still far from exploiting fully the limitation that radio listeners depend for their delight upon only one sense. In this we could compare the development of radio technique with the silent films. The screen’s dependence on gesture produced its own, peculiarity of acting-and it threw up Charlie Chaplin. It may be that this dependence upon hearing is just a passing phase. In another ten years television may again upset the applecart and send us after new techniques. But in the meantime we have still a long way to go to make the most of our ears. Blindness, it is said, sharpens the hearing; deafness the sight. Because we listen without seeing, we should, and do, become more sensitive to all the slightest shades of tone in acting. Thinking back upon many incongruous figures that I have seen on the stage in the past, actors who could speak well and act well or sing well but whose physical presence presented a deplorable incongruity, I cannot but think that this dependence upon the voice alone may be a great advantage. But the voice must be exploited to the full.

JOICES are important not only in plays but in talks too. Listening to the many talks that come over the air in the women’s sessions in the morning, I realise how greatly the success of a talk may depend upon the speaker, or rather the reader. I would not suggest that the voices are not carefully chosen or that they are not pleasing. But the reading is frequently monotonous. There is a dreary sameness in intonation that implies unpreparedness. Prose is not easy to read without monotony or Ooveremphasis, but some voices keep more life and buoyancy than others. I remember a very lively and charming voice that read part of the series of talks on Popular Comedians a while ago, and I liked the ballad reader of 2YA’s Sunday afternoon talks a few weeks ago. I felt that there was genuine feeling for the ballads that were being read. But these are oases. Self-consciousness, over-deliberation, too much elocution, too little attention to sense, over, as well as under, exploitation of tone-all these detract in varying degree from the appetising quality ef the talks dished up for us.