THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 335, 23 November 1945, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY |¥ there is one thing which commends the A.C.E. to us more than the catholicity of its interests, it is the topicality of its topics. As we sit sweltering in our office, we can look forward gratefully to the beverage report which 1YA is to broadcast at 10.45 a.m. on November 26 under the title of "Bottling Equipment" (other stations will be broadcasting it at different times on the same day). A talk given a propos de bottles is bound to cover a wide field and we are hoping to hear of some device which will prevent our next batch of applejack from blowing holes in the wash-house roof. After all, thirst things first. Also worth notice: 3YA, 3.0 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 (Mahler). 4YA, 7.10 p.m.: Famous Trials (talk), TUESDAY WE suspect that most of the juvenile population of Invercargill and its satellite towns of Bluff, Wallaceville, Nightcaps, and Hokonui will be sitting up to listen to the U.S. programme "Answering New Zealand," from 4YZ on November 27 at 7.30 p.-m., when the guest speaker is to be J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. By sweeping through the American underworld like a new broom, he has succeeded (where Milton failed) in glamorising the forces of law and order and for once, in the sad catalogue of human frailty, making virtue more interesting than vice. Not that the adolescents of the Deep South are likely to be concerned with such philosophical considerations. They are probably more interested in finding out whether the G in G-men stands for government, or gun, or if it’s simply a case, as Clapham and Dwyer pointed out, of G for police. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.0 p.m.: Wellington Harmoni iety. 3YA, 736 Bird Talk by P. eae WEDNESDAY Was it Captain John Brown’s "embattled farmers" who "fired the shot heard round the world," or another group? Off-hand we can’t remember, Nor can we remember whether Thoreau’s appeal for him was made on the platform or in print. We can remember that his soul goes marching on; and you will hear what Thoreau thought about him if you listen to 3YL at 7.43 p.m. on Wednesday, November 28. But don’t wait for Mr. Simmance to tell you the whole story. He has no time for. that, and has to assume that you have prepared yourself for his reading by some treading of your own. erase soe Trio (Dvorak) e 34 o e a¥A, 8.30 Victoria Ballads. THURSDAY WE have not had an opportunity of keeping the particular "Appointment with Fear" that is in 3YA’s diary for Thursday, November 29 (at 8.29 p.m.), so we are unable to explain the connection between its plot and its title -"Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble"beyond speculating on what our readers might well imagine for themselves, But we do know that this series, which is introduced by "The Man in Black," has

a way of succeeding in its intention of curdling the blood of innocent persons sitting quietly round their firesides. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.30 p.m.: Modern English songs. 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Peace Music Festival. FRIDAY ‘THE recorded programme by the BBC Empire String Orchestra, which 1YA will broadcast at 9.25 p.m. on Friday, November 30, features two works by modern British composers-a Suite for Strings on English Folk Airs by Arnold Foster, and Serenade for String Orchestra by Hubert Clifford. The conductor of the orchestra is Dr. Clifford himself. Arnold Foster was born in Sheffield in 1898. Since the death of Cecil Sharp he has been entrusted with most of the arrangement of English folk-dance tunes for orchestra and piano by the English Folk Dance and Song Society. He is a specialist, in the conducting of Tudor Choral music, and has a reputation for reviving neglected choral works. The Suite in this programme was written in 1928. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.0 p.m.: St. Andrew’s Day Concert. 3YA, 8.0 p.m.: Orpheus Choir. SATURDAY T 9.01 on Saturday, December 1, Station 2YC will broadcast in its programme "Music by 20th Century Composers," a work of a very different character from the Vaughan Williams Symphony described on page 19 of this issue. It is Arnold Schonberg’s "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte," for reciter, piano, and strings (a setting of Byron’s poem). Kurt List, who wrote an article on it in the American journal Modern Music, calls it the "first specifically political gesture" of a composer who has always been "a fighting artist." It was finished in June, 1942. The voice part is written on one line with the rhythm and phrase ing prescribed, and. the inflexion indi« cated (but not literally demanded) by sharps and flats and notes off the line, It has a "Napoleon motive" and a "Washington motive," and a quotation from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the V sign, of course. Also worth notice: 1YX, 10.6 p.m.: Mass for five voices (Byrd 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Bach Transcriptions Stokowski. : SUNDAY FEW weeks ago Fhe Listener intere viewed a distinguished visitor to New Zealand, Robert Gibbings, one of the living examples of the saying that 7 the best modern English’ writers a Irishmen. Mr. Gibbings was on his way to Samoa to renew his acquaintance with the life, both above and below the sure face, of the Pacific Islands, but before he left Auckland by the Matua he recorded for the NBS six readings, all from his own book Lovely is the Lee. This is one of three books which he has written about rivers, and is ‘the story of the people he met and the natural history he observed in the valley of the Lee in his native Ireland. The first reading will be heard from 1YA at 2.15 p.m. on Sunday, December 2. _Also worth notice: 2YA, 4.30 p.m.: "The Days of Creation# 4YA, 2.19 p.m.: "Pillars of Freedom."