THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 275, 29 September 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY EADERS who remember a book by John Pudney called Who Only England Know, will be interested in a BBC programme from 2YA at 7.55 p.m. on Monday, October 2-"R.A.F. Poems by John Pudney." John Pudney is a poet who has come to the fore in English letters during this war. He was commissioned by the R.A.F. to write poems about its life, and in his book Who Only England Know, he described how, while he was touring North Africa and the Middle East by air, he would receive a cable ordering a new poem, and how he would overcome the difficulties of cabling verse and keeping it intact. The selection to be heard from 2YA is read by Laurence Olivier, with incidental music chosen from English composers. Also worth notice: LYA, 7.15 p.m.: Talk to Farmers on Fertilisers. 4YA, 8.12 p.m.: Returned Services Choir. TUESDAY HE seasons are topical at any time, but in wartime they acquire new significance. At the moment a good many people in England are probably speculating with J. B. McGeachy on the question: will the battle of Germany be finished before winter overtakes autumn or will it have to wait until next spring brings the right kind of weather back? Next spring, in England, may be the last spring of the war in the west, or it may be the first spring of the new peace. But whatever may be _ uncertain at this moment, the blossom, the crocuses, the new leaf, and the daffodils are all predictable, and the BBC can probably predict them as well as anyone else. Listen to the BBC programme "Spring in England,’ from 1YA at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 3. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.12 pm.: ‘Pastoral’ Symphony (Beethoven). 3YL, 8.35 p.m.: "Eroica"’ Variations (Beethoven). = WEDNESDAY CHIEF INSPECTOR FRENCH’S CASES are a series of detective stories by Freeman Wills Crofts, which will be heard -from 2YA, starting at 8.15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 4. The first is called "The Case of the Old Gun," and the idea is to give you all the facts, and let you attempt to decide for yourself how Chief Inspector French secured a conviction on those facts alone. Two solicitors hold money in trust for an elderly woman; they misappropriate the money; to their surprise their client gets engaged; her fiance wants to see her accounts; the solicitors murder him. You, the listener, will know exactly how. But how did Chief Inspector French find out? There is no mystery element in these playsjust the fun of competing with Inspector French’s powers of deduction. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: Sonata in A Flat, Op, 110 (Beethoven). 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius). THURSDAY "MUSICAL FAUNA," the title of a short programme to be heard from 3YL at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, October 5, suggests a programme idea that could be dragged on to eternity-or at least for the-same length of time as it took Noah to fill the ark. The animals that

have been characterised in music or named in connection with musical compositions are not confined to those which make genteel or musical sounds-there are compositions equine, bovine, canine, feline, piscatorial, marsupial, and even bivalvular. But don’t ask us to list the examples. Station 3YL may be some help. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.0 p.m.: Clarinet Quintet (Brahms). 2YC, 8.42 p.m.: Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95 (Beethoven). FRIDAY F you have not had enough of animalart from 3YL on Thursday, there will be more from 4YA on Friday, October 6. Professor T. D. Adams will give his weekly readings at 9.33 p.m., and for this week he has chosen as his theme, "Animals in Prose and Verse." We do not know what particular poets and writers he will draw on for his beastly anthology, but some remarks made above as to the possible scope no doubt apply as well to literature as to music. In fact from John Skelton’s "Philip Sparrow" (that was later slain at Carrow) to Don Marquis’s archy (who couldn’t type capital letters) there must be more good reading than Professor Adams would manage in a year of animal sessions. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.33 p.m.: Symphony No. 29 (Mozart). 2Y¥C, 9.0 p.m.: Violin Sonata, K.454 (Mozart). SATURDAY ‘THE programme of choral music to be given from Station 1YA by the King’s College Chapel Choir at 7.35 p.m. on Saturday, October 7, will open with a very short item, but’ one of considerable interest, for which you may, if your interest goes as far, prepare yourself on Friday evening by hearing the BBC programme in the series Men and Music. At 9.25 p.m. on the Friday, 1YA will present William Byrd in this series, and at 8.0 p.m. on the Saturday evening you may hear a little canon by this great Elizabethan composer"Non Nobis Domine." Also worth notice; ; 1YA, 5.0 p.m.: "John Churchill, Duke of 3YL, 9.1 p.m.: "New World" Symphony (Dvorak). SUNDAY At 7.33 p.m. on Sunday, October 8, 2YD will broadcast the play which came first equal in the radio-play section of the recent literary competition for the Forces, conducted by the Army Education and Welfare Service. It is called "Strange Harmony," and was written by John Gundry, who will be a newcomer to NBS listeners, though some of his work was broadcast by the ZB stations in 1937 ("It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie," and "The Old School Tie"). "Strange Harmony" has as its central character an elderly singer, who had the habit (like Adelina Patti) of giving one farewell performance after another, and who finally went on the air as well; , there is also her manager, whose wife finds reason to be displeased with his devotion to the singer. But we shall not give the story away-you must tune in to 2YD to find out what happened. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.33 p.m.: Piano Concerto in D Minor K.466 (Mozart). 2YA, 8.5 p.m.: Opera, "Don Giovanni" (Mozart).