THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 248, 24 March 1944, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY ID the film Dangerous Moonlight make the "Warsaw Concerto" a popular piece of music, or did the concerto make Dangerous Moofnlight a popular film? Even our own film critic remains in sorne doubt on this point, but nobody has any doubt that the "Warsaw Conticerto" is still a very popular piece of music in its own right; least of all 2YA, which has prepared a special programme of Addinselliana for the devotees. It will be heard at 9.40 p.m. on Monday, March 27, and it will include, besides the magnum opus, Addinsell’s ballad "Spanish Lady" (from the film Fire Over England) sung by Denis Noble, and the tune "Hold Your Hats On" from the film Troopship, played by Hatry Roy’s Band. Also worth notice: 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Trio in E Minor by Haydn (Studio). 4YA, 7.43 p.m: "The Age of Innocence" (BBC programme). TUESDAY O commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Sir Edward Elgar, the BBC recently brought to the microphone two famous musicians who knew him-Steuart Wilson, the singer (he is now director of Overseas Music to the BBC) and Yehudi Menuhin. The NBS took a recording of their talks, and they will be heard from 2YA at 8.14 p.m. on March 28. Mr. Wilson remembers Elgar in 1905 looking "remarkably like my uncle," and wearing a moustache that belonged to the ‘eighties above his "mobile, gay mouth." Menuhin remembers Elgar one Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1932. when he was to rehearse the violin concerto in the presence of the composer: "After a few bars, Elgar stopped me and said it was a lovely day, and the races were on, and he was sure the concerto would be all right. It was so like Elgar, and, I thought, so like the English." The retniniscences of Elgar will be followed by part of Menuhin’s recording of the concerto mentioned. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.30 p.m: "Whither New Zealand?" (Tatk). 3YL, 8.0 p.m. et in E Fi » 127 Ms Quartet at, Op WEDNESDAY "THE FOUR FREEDOMS," a set of paintings by the American painter and friagazine illustrator, Norman Rockwell, were used as the basis of a symphony of the same name, which will be heard from 4YO in a U.S.A. programme shortly after 8 p.m. on Wednesday. March 29. It was composed by Robert Russell Bennett, the American musician whose chief activity is orchestrating musi¢ for the films, and he says he tried to follow Rockwell’s paintings as a motion picture score follows the film. The first movement takes "Freedom of Speech" as its subject; the second, "Freedom of Worship" (a Hebrew prayer, a Catholic prayer, a Protestant hymn, and a Negro spiritual combine and fuse finally "in one great chord"); the third movement, "Freedom From Want," reproduces Rockwell’s gay Christmas dinner scene; and the fourth, "Freedom From Fear," proceeds from the serenity of the painter’s idea, children sleeping in a secure world, to the

composer’s idea, a march symbolising the United Nations advancing to victory. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.32 p.m.: Quartet, Op. 18 No. 2 by Beethoven. (Studio). 2YA, 945 pm.: "The Net" (BBC programme). 3YA, 9.30 p.m: Symphony No 1 tahms). THURSDAY HEN the BBC building was evacuated during the blitz, a place of abode had to be found for the newlyinstituted Office of Twerps with Tommy Handley as Minister of Aggravation. Unfortunately, the Post Office delivered

correspondence to the Office of Works just down the road, and the war claimed some of the staff. But even so, this was the first BBC programme to play by Royal Command on the stage at Windsor Castle, when the occasion was Princess Elizabeth’s birthday. "Tommy Handley'’s Half Hour’ will be heard from 2YA at 8.28 p.m. on Thursday, March 30, his colleagues being Jack Train and Geraldo. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.47 p.m.: Polish Army Choir. 4YA, 8.14 p.m.: The String Orchestra, in a programme of Richter, Vivaldi and FRIDAY OME enthusiastic people become obsessed with an idea, sometimes their own, more frequently someone else’s, and nothing will satisfy them till the world has heard about it. They find other ways of expressing themselves besides writing letters to the papers. A few, like Parnell, have tried obstructing the normal course of Parliament. But Hyde Park perhaps offers the best outlet of all. Social reformers can there yell from soap-boxes and if they yell loudly enough they sometimes draw a ctowd. The significance of Hyde Park may not occur to the American who visits it, and this is the subject of the first in a series of joint programmes by NBC of America, and the BBC, to be heard from 2YA at 8 28 p.m on Friday, March 31. Further programmes in the series are "The Granite City." "Welsh Lidice," and "Anglo-American Small Town." Also worth notice: -BYA, 715 p.m.: "The Maori and the Life of Post-war New Zealand" (Talk). 4YA, 9.25 p.m.: Arrangements of Purcell by Henry J. Wood. SATURDAY SATURDAY is April Fool’s Day-no one knows why. The most plausible conjecture comes from France. This nation took the lead over all Christendom in commencing the New Year on January 1 instead of March 25. Before the change, April 1 was looked on as

the climax of the festivals begun on March 25, when visits were paid and gifts bestowed. With the adoption of the reformed calendar in 1564, New Year’s Day was carried back to January 1 and only pretended gifts and mock visits were made on April 1 (Poisson d’ Avril) to catch the "April fish" or "suckers" who had forgotten the change of date. But don’t expect to find suggestions of this in the "April Day" selection by the London Concert Orchestra, which will be broadcast from 4YA at 8.49 p.m. on April 1. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.6 pm.: "The Village Opera," by Handel, arr. Diack (Studio). 3YL, 9.18 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 in D Major (Mahier). SUNDAY ICHARD STRAUSS once said the day would come when someone would "compose" the silverware on the table so that the listeners would recognise the spoons from the forks. He also told a conductor that in his tone-poem Don Juan he had so clearly delineated one of the libertine’s victims that everyone would know she had red hair. Now, an American composer, Aaron Copland, has drawn in music "A Lincoln Portrait" (to be heard in the U.S.A. programme which 4YA will broadcast at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, April 2). But bearing in mind a celebrated saying by Lincoln on the subject of what you can do to some/ all of the people some/all of the time, Mr. Copland has not composed his portrait entirely in notes of music. To be on the safe side, he has included portions of Lincoln’s speeches (read by a narrator), including no doubt the remark that "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 p.m.: R.N.Z.A.F. Band. 2YA, 9.42 p.m.: Piano recital by Lloyd Powell 4YA, 9.22 p.m.: Violin Concerto (Beethoven).