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New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 258, 2 June 1944, Page 6

SHORT time ago we printed the news that Arthur Bliss had resigned from the post of Director of Music to the BBC after holding it for two years, to continue what he feels is his real work, composition. His successor in the position is Victor HelyHutchinson (above) also a composer. Mr. Hely-Hutchinson was born in Capetown in 1901 and went to Oxford. His musical ability developed early, and when he was nine, a volume of his compositions was published under the title "A Child’s Thoughts." He studied at the Royal College of Music and as @ pupil of Sir Donald Tovey, and from 1922-25 was a lecturer on music at Capetown University. In 1926 he joined the music staff of the BBC, and during the latter part of his eight years there was musical director of the Midland station in Birmingham. In 1934 he became Professor of Music at Birmingham University. He has written effective compositions, usually in a cheerful vein, including an operetta "Hearts Are Trumps," and a setting of Blake’s "Songs of Innocence" for fernale chorus and string orchestra. Some listeners may know his Handel parody "Old Mother Hubbard," and a part of his "Carol Symphony" is a heard on the air at Christmas me.