THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 251, 14 April 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY |F the Summer is wet, the garden by Autumn sprawls with a sodden mass of rank fungus and debilitated chickweed. If the Summer is dry, by Autumn the garden looks like a well-seasoned hay paddock. Dead heads and dry stems, rotting apples; and old toad-stools lie in a lump, closely bound together by coarse cobwebs, hung with slowly-dying blowflies. If we sound out of touch with the glories of nature, then it’s because we have just finished clearing out the fungus and the dead sticks from a bed of gtape hyacinths and primroses, and now the wind has come and covered the whole place with Autumn leaves 12 inches deep. But you may be interested to hear the gardening talk from 3YA on Monday, April 17, at 7.15 p.m. The Garden Expert speaks on "Autumn Leaves"-and in Christchurch experts on that subject are experts. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.5 p.m.: Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, by Beethoven (studio). SYA, 9.25 p.m.: Quartet in B Fiat (Bliss). 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Royal Dunedin Male Choir. TUESDAY UR first reaction, when we saw the title of the Winter Course Talk to be heard from 4YA at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, was to turn to a scientist friend. "What do you know," we asked him, "about Science and Everyday Life and The Scientific Attitude?" "I know them both," he said. "They’re very good." We raised our eyebrows, then discovered that we had mentioned the names of two books. But as only 22 minutes have been put aside for the talk, we think it unlikely that Dr. F. J. Turner will read them both through in that time; we think it far more likely that he has something of his own to say on the problems implied by the titles of his talk, and if he has read J. B. S. Haldane and C. H. Waddington on the same subject, so much the better. Also worth notice: 1YA,° 7.36 p.m.: "Hitler Meets Hitler" (BBC programme). 3YL, 10.0 p.m.: Music’ by Mozart. WEDNESDAY "THE lure of the Latin, which has ‘" tempted most Russian composers and a good many French ones to write something with the Spanish tang about it, seems to have lost none of its attractions by crossing the Atlantic. As if to demonstrate this, Station 3ZR, Greymouth, has assembled a programme which will reveal how one Frenchman and two American composers capitulated to the fascination of what lay behind their southern frontiers, and the West Coast listener may decide when he has heard Ravel’s Bolero "coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain," whether he prefers the American article-John Alden Carpenter’s "Serenade," or Aaron and’s musical picture of a Mexico City fight club-*"El Salon Mexico.’ Or perhaps he will decide against all three and send in a request for "South of the Border." Also worth notice: 1 7.30 p.m.: Quartet in D Major 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 3 (Brahms), 4YO, 9. 0 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 (Bizet)

THURSDAY HERE is plenty of scope for a series of radio talks on the history of Auckland. Two years ago 3YA broadcast, in its Winter Course sessions, a most interesting series called "Covering Canterbury," in which the development of the province was reviewed. This year it is intended to do a similar series from 1YA-"Auckland Province: Its Origin, a

History, and Development." The formation of the land itself, the spread of settlement, contacts between European and Maori, the growth of Auckland City into the largest of New Zealand centres, the planting of special settlements, the trend of industry, social as well as economic history-these will all be dealt with. In the first talk, to be given this Thursday, April 13, at 7.15 p.m., E. J. Searle will tell listeners about "The Physical Basis of Development." A week later Miss R. Gorrie, a teacher at the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, will discuss "Early Contacts," and on April 27 Archdeacon Partridge will take "Missionary Days" as his subject. Also worth notice: "a 8.0 p.m.: The "Trout" Quintet (Schu2¥C, 8.0 p.m.: Quartet in E Flat (Mozart). anda 4YA, 8.17 p.m.: Margherita Zel (studio). FRIDAY NTONIO VIVALDI, the Italian composer who died just over 200 years ago, gets about an inch in the Oxford Companion to Music, and a bit more in bigger encyclopedias, where he may be credited with 60 or 80 concertos. But Ezra Pound, the American poet who was last heard of in Italy, is something of a Vivaldi fan and would like to increase the composer’s standing. "My minimum claim," Pound said in 1939, "is that one can’t be certain Vivaldi is merely another composer like 60 others until one has at least heard or read through the 309 unedited concertos lying at Turin." Pound has examined them, or some of them-and has been "pleased by the quality of Vivaldi’s mind therein apparent." The listener who doubts the value of an Axis sympathiser’s comments may test the quality of Vivaldi’s mind in the concerto which 3YA will present at 8.24 p.m. on Friday, April 21. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.32 p.m.: Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven). 2YA, 8.28 pm: "Transatlantic Call" (BBC programme).

SATURDAY T this time, when the pleasures and the sorrows of racing are being denied to many, a broadcast that will enable some of them to enjoy it vicariously and without risk to their own purses may be welcome. Station 4YA seems to think so anyway, for at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, April 22, that station will broadcast a BBC programme, "Psychic Trip-A Racing Uncertainty," which tells the tale of a man who dreamed at night of the names of horses, backed them and won, and went on doing so; but he was one of those who don’t know when it is time to stop. We will not spoil the fun by telling you what price he paid for his imprudence. We leave that to Station 4YA. Also worth notice: > itz 9.0-10.30 p.m.: Music by Tchaikovski. 3YL, 8.0-10.0 p.m.: Music by Brahms. 4YA, 8.8 p.m.: Margherita Zelanda (studio), SUNDAY ‘THE significance you attach to Sunday, April 23, depends on whether you believe in Bacon or in Shakespeare. A book we saw recently, for instance, was written by a man who believed in Bacon. He pointed out that in the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare the two halves of the jacket are different, and that if you double the two patterns and then reverse one you get the initials FB, and therefore Francis Bacon was the real author of the plays. He didn’t go on to say whose initials they would be if you went one step further and transposed them. But the NBS evidently believes that Shakespeare wrote those plays himself, for it will celebrate April 23-Shakespeare’s birthday-with two plays, not by Shakespeare admittedly, but about him. You will find them in 2YA’s programme at 3.0 p.m. and 9.42 p.m. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.15 p.m.: Opera, "The Rose Cavalier’ (Strauss). 3YA, 3.0 p.m.: Music by Vaughan Williams, 4YA, 4.15 p.m.: English County Songs.