THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 354, 5 April 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

India To-day FEW. weeks ago Miss Shakuntale Paranjype, daughter of the High Commissioner for India in Australia (Sir Raghunath Paranjype), visited New Zealand, and while she was in Wellington she recorded for the NBS a talk called "India To-day." This talk has been heard from stations in the South Island already, but at short notice, and it is now being scheduled at Station 2YA on Monday, April 8, which gives us time to bring it to the attention of those who would be interested to. hear something about the life of India’s women to-day. Miss Paranjype discusses the changing ideas about their position in Indian life, and present-day social problems there. Her talk will be heard from 2YA at 11.0 a.m. on April 8. N.Z. Music for Children POTIKI listeners are probably well prepared in advance for the broadcast of their local talent at five o’clock this Wednesday afternoon (April 3). Songs from the book of verse’ just Us, by John Brent of Opotiki, set to music by Kenneth Liggett, also of Opotiki, will be sung in the 1YA Children’s Hour by Betty Thorpe, of Auckland. The broadcast has been arranged by Cinderella, director of 1YA’s Children’s Hour. Curse of the Bronze Lamp ‘THE Curse of the Bronze Lamp-the curse of the Egyptian mummy. Who hasn’t heard all those stories of people coming, to a sticky end through disturbing an Egyptian mummy in defiance of

the curse? Do you remember, too, sim+ ilar stories that gained great currency after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen shortly after the last war? If you do, you will the more appreciate this story of John Dickson Carr’s, which is

founded on that wonderful revelation of the artistic magnificence of the later Egyptian dynasties. Of course, none of the characters in the story bears any relation to the real people concerned in bringing Tutankhamen to the eyes of modern men. Dickson Carr has given an entirely new twist to this old, eerie theme. It is another of the many that he has written in the series "Appointment With Fear," and it will be heard from 4YZ at 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9. O Moon! SINCE we chopped up our ouija-board for kindling wood during the fuel shortage last winter, we have at the moment no means. of . discovering Haydn’s reactions ‘to the article which we print on page 30. He may or may not have heard the Music of the Spheres (probably not, as Strauss wrote it long after his death), but he did provide us with a puppet opera-called I] Mondo della Luna, or "The World on the Moon." Excerpts from this work will be featured in the classical hour from 1YA on Friday, April 12, at 2.30 p.m. Beethoven’s Variations for Piano, Op. 35,

played by Lili Kraus, will also be heard during the same session, as well as vocal numbers by Beethoven and Liszt. Study in Black and White E have often speculated on the circumstances in which A.C.E. talks are written but we have never had any doubt that there was in Dunedin someone who kept a sensitive finger on the public pulse. Consistent topicality must be more than coincidental, and we are fully persuaded that there is more than a tenuous connection between the talk "Absence from Work" which is being heard all over the country next week (2YH, April 10, 9.15 am.; 1YA and

4YZ, April 11, at 10.45 and 9.0 am. respectively; 2YA, April 12, 11.0 a.m.), and the visit of the: Australian cricketers. We would not suggest, as our artist does, that there has been a sudden peak in the mortality-curve of grandmothers. But there must have been a decline in industrial man-hours. The A.C.E. will no doubt point a moral. No Safety in Numbers NEW serial by Max Afford, in ten instalments, has lately been produced by the NBS drama department, and it will be heard from 4YA Dunedin, starting this Wednesday, April 3. It is called "The 89 Men" and the second instalment will begin at 8.29 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10. It is a mystery thriller about a secret society of 89 men all pledged to each other on pain of death. One breaks the rule and is found murdered in a museum. There is a butterfly, which is known to lepidopterists as "the 89," pinned on his clothes when he is found. This_is the clue which, when it is interpreted by an expert in such matters, leads to the final solution of the mystery. Quartet by Alfred Hill FEW months ago the Queensland State Quartet made a recording of Alfred Hill’s Quartet No. 11 in D Minor. That recording has now come to New Zealand, and Station 2YC will broadcast it at 8.28 p.m. on Sunday, April 14. Alfred Hill is now 75, and towards the end of last year some tributes were paid to him in Sydney. In December, a public orchestral concert consisting entirely of his works was given there, and the Sydney Morning Herald said it was the first thing of its kind for many years. In August, musicians assembled at the instance of the Australian Performing Rights Association to meet Mr. Hill and hear the Queensland Quartet play the work they later recorded. The Quartet in D Minor is the eleventh of 17 Alfred Hill has written. It has three movements -Allegro (with a slow introduction, Andantino), Adagio, and Allegretto. The

players are Ernest Llewellyn, Harold Taberner, David Popell, and Don Howley. ‘A new portrait of Alfred Hill appears on page 24 in this issue. Circles and Squares OME real Scottish dance music, récorded for the BBC by William Hannah’s Scottish Dance Band, will be heard from 3YA at 9.45 p.m. on Saturday, April 13. The programme begins with the Circassian Circle, which always follows the Grand March, in a typical evening’s dancing in the country places of Scotland. Then there is the Highland Schottische (another circle dance), "Flowers of Edinburgh," "Duke of Perth," "Petronella," and "Glasgow Highlanders." The Eightsome Reel, danced by four couples, is a square dance, and it is included in this programme because no Scottish dance progratnme in town or country would be complete without it. William Hannah’s Band consists of violin, piano, trumpet, drums, and accordion, this last being played by Hannah himself. He has been playing Scottish dance music for nearly 30 years. Trollope Reconsidered N the series "New Judgment" Elizabeth Bowen, the English novelist and short story writer, will talk about Anthony Trollope at 4.1 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, from 4YA (a BBC recording). Trollope’s works, particularly some of his political novels, have latterly been enjoying a revival of interest, and there have been some new editions in the last year or two. Elizabeth Bowen brings to the microphone not only an authoritative "New Judgment," but also some familiarity with radio work, which makes her an attractive broadcaster. Trollope lived from 1815 to 1882, and his best known books are the "Barchester" novels. He was an official in the Post Office (he entered it as a clerk in 1834, and later invented the pillar box), and by a mechanical regularity in his writing achieved a great volume of work, though his official duties were arduous. He also found time to hunt twice a week.