THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 355, 12 April 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

The English Theatre HE English Theatre has had a long history of growth and developmenta history stretching out to six hundred years. In that way, it is rather like the other great school of drama, the Greek. Both of them, too, have this in common, that they originally started as dramatic representations of religious mysteries. The BBC’s Jenifer Wayne has taken the English theatre as her theme for a series of thirteen radio productions, each approached in a different way, but each giving the listener a vivids life-like picture of the period with which it deals. The first, dealing with "The Miracle and Morality Plays," will be heard from 2YA 9.30 p.m. on Monday, April 15. It is portrayed through the eyes of 14th Century peasants seeing the Church service from which our drama started, and goes on to explain-again through the eyes and mouths of contemporary peasants and priests-how much services went from the Church to the churchyard, from the churchyard to the market-place, and eventually developed into the Morality plays. Later programmes in this series will deal with Elizabethan drama, the Court Masque; the Restoration theatre, English opera, pantomime, and so on up to Victorian melodrama, the Musical comedy, and Ibsen and the new drama. Bach’s Mass in B Minor J S. BACH’S Mass in B Minor, which " most musical people acknowledge to be the greatest choral work in existence, will be given its first complete perform. ance from Station 4YA in Professor V. E. Galway’s fortnightly session "Masterpieces of Music" at 8.0 p.m. on Mondays, starting on Monday, April 15. (Auckland listeners can hear it from 1YX in two parts, this Sunday, April 14, and the following Sunday). Professor Galway will present the work in his usual way, with introductory descriptions illustrated at the piano, and he will divide it into the following sections: (1) Kyrie; (2) Gloria, Pt. 1; (3) Gloria, Pt. 2; (4) Credo; (5) Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. These recordings, which are by the Philharmonic Choir and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Albert Coates, were recently acquired by the NBS in response to many requests from listeners who wanted to hear the work. Whing, Sum, or Histle "4 ALL JOIN IN" is the self-explanatory name of a new series of BBC programmes now being released over the National stations, and two different in- stalments of it are to be heard from 1YA and 2YC on Thursday, April 18 (8.26 p.m. at 1YA and 8.0 p.m. at 2YC). Each of these programmes has some leading star to introduce it, and the music is provided by the BBC’s Augmented Dance Orchestra, conducted by Stanley Black, and Vincent Tildesley’s Mastersingers, a male voice choir who sing light and cheerful music. Station 1YA’s programme will be introduced by a fugitive from an ITMA gang-Tommy Handley-and 2YC’s will be introduced by Elizabeth Welch, the coloured singer

who took part in some Paul Robeson films a few years ago (Sanders of the River and Song of Freedom). The singers Denny Dennis and Edna Kaye are featured in both of these programmes. (A photograph of Edna Kaye appears among "People in the Programmes" this week.) "All Join In" brings you favourite tunes of to-day and yesterday and it is specially designed, in the words of Bobby Howes (a compere in one of the coming programmes), for people who want to join in and "whing, sum or histle." Was Tennyson Wrong? F "Fatigue v. Efficiency" (one of the A.C.E. titles for the coming week) were the subject for a debate instead of the pep-talk we suspect it to be, we would be more than willing to be the party of the first part. For, in your ear, we scorn and condemn efficiency. Efficiency disturbs the even tenor of

existence. It devises quicker ways for doing things, it invents time clocks and atom bombs. In short, it makes us tired -and simultaneously deludes us into thinking that we would not be tired if_we were more efficient. Now fatigue, on the other hand-what could be more natural? Why should we toil, the roof and crown of things? If one feels efficient, why not lie down and rest until the feeling goes away? The A.C.E., we suspect, will supply an adequate answer (to match the strenuous times in which we live) for those who tune in to 1YA on April 18, at 10.45 a.m.,The same talk will be heard from 3YA the same day at 2.30 p.m. Easter Carols TATIONS 1YA, 2YA and 4YA will present a new BBC programme of Easter carols from a _ historic London Church on Sunday, April 21 (1YA at 8.30 p.m., 2YA at 2.45 p.m., and 4YA at 3.19 p.m.). The programme was recorded by the BBC Chorus, accompanied by Dr. Harold Darke at the organ, in the ‘Church of St. Michael’s, one of the most famous in the City of London. The annals of St. Michael’s go back to jthe year 1055-before the Norman Conquest of Britain. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and rebuilt to the design of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The organ that you will hear is St. Michael’s greatest pride. Although it has been modernised, it is even older than the church itself. There is a beauty in the very simplicity of these Easter carols

PPE EPP DPD DDD DD DDD DIS which is reflected in their titles-‘Love Is Come Again" and "Cheer Up, Friends and Neighbours" are set to old French tunes, "Easter Eggs" to a traditional Russian melody (heard in Stravinsky’s "Petrouchka") and "Now the Holly Bears g Berry" comes from Cornwall. Readers who have the Oxford Book of Carols will find all these ones in it. The programme ends with an Easter hymn by the contemporary British composer Granville Bantock. Was Shakespeare a Democrat? H F. von HAAST, President of the * Wellington Shakespeare Society, has written a dialogue called "Why All This Fuss About Shakespeare" in commemoration of Shakespeare’s birthday (April 23), and it will be broadcast from Station 2YA at 3.0 p.m. on Sunday, April 21. Mr. von Haast is a veteran Shakespeare student and amateur player, and he feels that, although Shakespeare has had more books written about him than anyone else, there is still a great deal of ignorance about what sort of man he was, why and how he wrote, and the general conditions under which his genius flourished. The dialogue he has written begins with an overseas visitor to New Zealand asking "Why all this fuss about Shakespeare?" and wanting to know the answer to such questions such as "Was he a democrat?" and so on. Mr. von Haast allows his narrator to build up the case against Shakespeare as the literature for to-day, when kings are two a penny, and plays on the lives of the aristocracy might be said to be out of place-then winds up by giving the reasons for this superficial aspect of Shakespeare’s plays, and finally converts his foreigner.