THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 303, 13 April 1945, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY A NEW series of talks will start at 4YA an Monday, April 16, at 7.15 p.m.-‘"Flashes From a Sheep Station." It consists of sketches, short stories, and oddities of back-country life by a woman with many years’ experience in a remote sheep station. "Flashes From a Sheep Station" will be at once similar to and different from the popular "Barbara at Home" series by Mary Scott. They are something new in radio here. Florrie Hogarth has captured with her pen many picturesque characters. of back-country life and writes with humour and sympathy of the odd people, the misfits, and the "real characters." Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.0 p.m.: NBS String Quartet 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Haydn Sonatas (Studio). TUESDAY "HE HOMECOMING," which will be heard from 1YA at 8.14 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17, is a radio play by Anthony Gilbert, in which Sybil Thorndike takes the leading part. It is not under-rating its quality to say that the chief interest lies in its chief actorthe lineal London successor of such famous people as Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. It was Sybil Thorndike who played the title role in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, and she did what was perhaps more difficult — she played the part of Medea in a London production from the original play by Euripides. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.31 p.m.: Symphony in C (Bizet). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: "For the ’Cellist.’’ WEDNESDAY RNOLD SCHONBERG, one of the classical figures of modern music, who is still too modern to be much known here except by his early works, celebrated his 70th birthday last year in America. One of his most recent works, the Piano Concerto Op. 43, was performed for the first time, and an American recording of it will be heard from 4Y0 at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18. It is in four sections, played as oné movement: andante, scherzo, adagio (with cadenza) and rondo. Lou Harrison, writing in "Modern Music," said it bore a noticeable relation to the concerto grosso style, with a piano part in the best of taste "never relaxing into arpeggiated accompaniments, nor .. . challenging the orchestra to the conventional virtuoso battle." Schonberg was reported in this periodical to be in good health and writing a large work on counterpoint. : Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.35 p.m.: Music by Tchaikovski, 3YA, 8.0 p.m.: Organ Recital. THURSDAY / SUSAN ERTZ has made her name in -Britain as a story writer, and is perhaps best known here for her novels The Galaxy and Madame Claire. One of her short stories has been adapted as a play by Winifred Carey for the BBC, -under ithe title "Frenzy," and has been produced for radio by ‘Marjorie Banks, .It is a brief ‘thriller with a punch, dealing with episodes in‘the life of a small English village. It is brought

to us by the London Transcription Service of the BBC and will be heard from 4YA at 10.0 p.m. on Thursday, April 19. A portrait of Susan Ertz appears on page 21. Also worth notice: 2YC, 8.0 p.m.: Haydn’s Quartets (Series). 3YA, 3.0 p.m.: ‘Petrouchka’’. (Stravinsky). FRIDAY ‘THE BBC BRAINS TRUST discussion group to be heard from 2YA at 8.30 p.m. on Friday, April 20, will include Hilary St. George Saunders, assistant librarian to the House of Commons, and author of The Battle of Britain, who makes a distinctive contribution to the discussion of the question "Must historians wait to get a proper perspective of events?" The Brains Trust will also grapple with the question "Will it ever be possible for mankind to have as much purchasing power as ability to produce things to be purchased?" Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.0 p.m.: "The Moods-of. Man." 4YA, 9.33 p.m.: ‘Schoolmasters."’¢ SATURDAY TATION 2YC is planning its classical music programmes on a new scheme as from next week. For instance, the symphonic programme on Wednesday, April 18, will open a weekly series of the seven symphonies by Sibelius. and the remainder of the programme will be devoted to the music of Tchaikovski, with excerpts from Russian Opera, at 9.30 p.m. On Thursday, the first of a similar series of Haydn’s string quartets will be heard at 8.0 p.m., and music by Ravel will complete the Chamber Music Hour. Friday’s Sonata Hour will also see the inauguration of a series, in this case Beethoven’s ‘piano sonatas, and on Saturday one of the chief features of the Classical Hour, which is planned according to composers, will be the first of a series of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues ("The Well-Tempered Clavier’) from the recordings made by Edwin Fischer. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.12 p.m.: Brahms’ Symphonies. 3YL, 8.0-9.0 p.m.: Three Contemporary Composers, : SUNDAY OME songs by Gustav Holst that are not often heard here will be sung by Cara Cogswell (contralto) from 3YA at 8.35 p.m. on Sunday, April 22. They are settings of three Vedic Hymns, whose titles, translated, are "Dawn," "Sky," and "Stormclouds." Veda, meaning knowledge, denotes the collections of hymns and rituals which form the earliest scripture of the Aryans of India, and the Rig-Veda ("Veda of the Verses") is the earliest of them; it is believed to have been put together between 2000 and 1000 B.C., in the basin of the Upper Indus. There are 1,017 hymns in it, of which most are addressed to the chief Vedic deities. The English composer Gustav Holst made considerable use of this Indian literature, and the songs Cara Cogswell will sing are the first of his three groups from the RigVeda. Also worth notice: . 1YA, 9.33 p.m.: Opera-‘Cosi fan Tutte" (Mozart) ’ 3YA, 9.22 p-m.: Ashburton Vocal Study Group.