THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY [N the year 1740, Frederick, Prince of Wales, planned to celebrate the birthday ot his three-year-old daughter, and for this anniversary, David Mallet and James Thomson collaborated on a masque running high with patriotic fervour and "taken from the various fortunes of Alfred the Great.’ The music was.composed by the leading English theatrical composer of the day, Thomas Augustine Arne. At the climax of the masque, the popular tenor, Thomas Lowe, stepped forward and sang for the first time an "Ode in Honour of Great Britain, call’d Rule, Britannia," which was to become during the lifetime of those present a second National Anthem. For more of the story behind this song listen in to 2YD at 8.40 p.m. on Monday, November 20. Also worth notice: oA 2YA, 8:0 p.m.: Quartet No, 2 in G (Beethoven). 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: "Archduke" Trio (Beethoven). TUESDAY THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, one of the later works of the English composer, Sir Granville Bantock, will be heard from 2YA at 8.45 p.m. on Tuesday, November 21. This work, which is for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, is in two parts-In Praise of Famous Men and The Pilgrim Now Hath Found His Lord, the words being adapted by B. Andrews from John Choir, with the BBC Wireless Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stanford Robinson. Also worth notice: 1YX, 8.8 p.m.: Symphony No. 7 (Schubert). 3YL, 9.25 p.m.: Quintet in A Minor (Elgar). WEDNESDAY OME weeks ago 2YA was broadcasting a series of special programmes from the American Office of War Information called "Answering New Zealand," in which celebrated Americans were brought to the microphone to answer questions about America that had been submitted from New Zealand. This series will now start on 1YA, the first session. being heard at 9.50 p.m. on Wednesday, November 22. The guests whose voices will be heard in this initial session are Mrs. Roosevelt, Paul Robeson, and the New Zealand Minister to Washington, the Hon. Walter Nash. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 36 (Mozart), 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 9 (Mahler). THURSDAY RE modern popular songs "all the same" to you? Do you think back to the old days, when a new’ tune was a new tune? Perhaps you think of Stephen Foster, and say: "There was a writer of original songs." Then you might not get on very well with a musicologist who has discovered that nearly all ‘the well-known Foster melodies, if written out in the same key, can be fitted to the same bass, the bass of an old English tune called "Gregory Walker." You will still insist that there is "something about them" just the same, and of course you will be right. Stephen Foster’s songs, though they have been overlaid with sentimentality and sobstuff by their interpreters,

will survive it somehow. A number of them will be heard in orchestral garb from 2YA at 9.52 p.m., on Thursday, November 23. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Schubert, Bi 8.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 5 (Schuert). FRIDAY RCHESTRAL NIGHTS: Halle Orchestra is the next in a series of programmes that started this month from 3YA. The guest artist of the one which will be broadcast at 9.25 p.m. on Friday, November 24, is Isobel Baillie, the English soprano, who was in New Zealand at the time of the Centennial Exhibition. The Halle Orchestra received its name from Sir Charles Halle, the German-English pianist and conductor, who conducted it from 1857 until his death in 1895. In this position he played an important part in English musical life, and under his guidance the Halle concerts became a landmark in the North of England. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.25 p.m.; Symphony in G Minor (Kalinnikov). 3YA, 8.34 p.m.: Viola Concerto (Walton). SATURDAY E don’t know, as we write this paragraph, whether Nandari of Central Australia is a man or a place or a dog. All we know is that Linda Rowlatt will talk about it from 2YA at 11.0 a.m. on Saturday, November 25. But whatever it is, if it belongs to Céntral Australia, Mrs. Rowlatt will bring it to life. We are not sure that it would be correct to say that she has carried her swag through Central Australia-we think it was E. J. Howard, M.P., father of Mabel Howard, M.P., who told us about that. But she has wandered about Australia with a rucsack and a rug, and if she has not crossed from Adelaide to Darwin, the reason may be that the empty "bottles littering the track do not make a comfortable bed. A New Zealander serving in the Australian Air Force told us recently in a letter that he did not know how many bottles there were in the world till he joined a land convoy to Darwin. Also worth notice: ‘ 1YX, 9.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 (Elgar). 2YC, 9.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 (Mahler). SUNDAY : HE crime was manslaughter, the accused was innocent, but the only person who could testify to his innocence had been safely shipped out of the way. So the prospect was black for Harry Fenton, leading character in the NBS play "Magic Hours," to be broadcast from 2YA on Sunday, November 26, at 9.50 pm. But Harry Fenton a dual personality, which he had nurtured during his hours in No Man’s Land in World War I. and by projecting .himself to the scene of the crime he was able to prove strange things, and cause a suicide. The setting of this play ranges from the Kuala Seladang Rubber Estate, Malaya, to orange-groves in Southern California. Also worth notice: 1YA, 9.33 p.m.: Opera, ‘‘Pelleas et Melisande" (Debussy). 4YA, 9.22 p.m.: Trio in A Minor, Op. 50 ( Tchaikovski) .