THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 274, 22 September 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

_A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY RADIO version of Christopher Marlowe’s play on "The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus" will be heard from 2YA at 7.55 p.m. on Monday, September 25. Marlowe’s drama differs. greatly from Goethe’s later treatment of the same legend. His "Dr, Faustus" becomes more than a mere magician, a man athirst for infinite power, ambitious to be "great Emperor of the World." Faustus makes a compact with Mephistopheles for the surrender of his soul in return for 24 years of life, during which Mephistopheles shall attend him and give him whatever he demands, but unlike Goethe’s Faust, Marlowe’s character dies horribly, raving in magnificent blank verse. The BBC recorded version takes some of Faustus’ speeches and the comments of the chorus, condensing the play within 15 minutes, but preserving its continuity. Also worth notice: 2YH, 9.25 p.m.: Fantastic Symphony (Berlioz). 3YA, 7.45 p.m.: Timaru Victory Concert. TUESDAY

ISTENERS to Station 1YA have already heard broadcast recitals by the English operatic soprano, Thea Philips, who recently came to New Zealand from Australia, and next week she will bé heard from 2YA. Thea Philips was trained in Italy, and made her operatic debut at the San Carlo, Naples. Back in London, she was for a time prima donna at Covent Garden, taking principal parts in seasons directed by Sir Thomas Beecham. She has been giving recitals in Australia, and sang the soprano part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, under Eugene Ormandy, Details of her programmes have not reached The Listener as we go to press, but her repertoire is varied with lieder, operatic excerpts and modern songs. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.0 p.m.: Concerto No. 4 in G (Beethoven). 3YL, 8.37 p.m.: Concerto Grosso for Pian and Strings (Bicch)-. WEDNESDAY "RADIO STAGE," to be heard from 2YD at 9.2 pm. on Wednesday, September 27, features a bright little comedy called "Mushrooms for Tea." It has, we warn our readers, only the most superficial resemblance to The Cheat, Sacha: Guitry’s well-known film. It does concern a household who sat down to mushrooms for tea, but it ends where The Cheat began. "Mushrooms for Tea" is sub-titled "A Domestic Discord in One Flat," and its scene is "somewhere in the suburbs." It is the story of the husband fishing for a contract from a golfing companion and bringing him home to tea without warning his wife. As for what happens after they have improvised a meal of dubious mushrooms, you may hear from 2YD. Also worth notice: 1YA, 7.30 p.m.: Violin Sonata No. 6 (Corelli). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony,No. 6 (Tchaikovski ) . THURSDAY OU don’t have to have an unusual memory to be able to reel off a limerick or two. Most of us can remember a handful of one sort or another. Of course there are limericks

and limericks — the kind the vicar can repeat with safety at the Patriotic Bazaar, the kind picked up in travel and passed on in bars and smoke rooms, and perhaps several intervening shades between the extremes. At 10.0 p.m, on Thursday, September 28, Station 4YA will present a programme in which Langford Reed has something to say about this very popular form of poetry. He gives the whole history of the limerick, and quotes some of the best examples, some of them as much as 250 years old. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.40 p.m.: Owen Jensen (pianist). 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Orchestral works by Liszt. FRIDAY OST sensible animals go into retirement for: the winter and sleep it off, but man hasn’t advanced as far as that yet. Many of our problems would be solved if we all took to our beds in the middle of April and stayed there till the middle of . September. Coal shortages, for instance, just wouldn’t exist. There is an indication, however, that something official is being done in this matter at last. The A.C.E. talk for 4YA on Friday, September 29, at 10.0 a.m. is entitled "Saving Time by Resting," and may be the forerunner of an extensive campaign to put us all earlier to bed, But we are still not quite sure whose time this would save. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.4 p.m.: »>Thea Philips (soprano). 3YA, 8.25 p.m.: Violim Concerto (Tchaikovski ). SATURDAY ISTENERS to Station 2YC on Saturday evening, September 30, will hear a new work by the German composer Paul Hindemith, now a refugee in the United States. It is called "Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber," and the composer describes it himself as "not just an orchestration"; he has, in effect "re-composed Weber’s themes." The first themes which are the basis of the four movements include three from some of Weber’s less well known pieces for piano duet, and one from another fourhand piano work, the overture to the play Turandot. This theme was in turn taken by Weber from another sourcea Chinese melody quoted by J. J. Rousseau in his Dictionary of Music. The work is played by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Artur Rodzinsky, and will be heard shortly after 9.0. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.0 p.m.: Music from the Scandinavian Masters. 3YL; 8.0 p.m.: "Elijah"? (Mendelssohn). SUNDAY EW ZEALANDERS are familiar with many of the associations of the phrase "Greece and Crete." Without the same personal associations, they also call up vivid pictures at the mention of Malta, or Taranto, Matapan, or Pantelleria. In a BBC programme which 4YA will present at, 3.30 p.m. on Sunday, October 1, these events will be recalled in a dramatised form undef the title "The Battle for the Middle Sea: A Story of Sea Power in the Mediterranean." Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.25 p.m.: Symphony in D Minor (Franck). 3YA, 2.44 p.m.: Magnificat (C. P, E. Bach}e