THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Diabolic LAY OF THE WEEK on Monday, May 20, at 1YA will be "Speaking of the Devil." The idea of this play is, of course, tied up with the saying that if you speak of the devil he will appear. And it’s a saying with something to be said for it-only a few hours before our advance copies of this week’s programmes came to hand we had been looking through a recent Times Literary Supplement (or was it the Manchester Guardian Weekly?) and we had noticed reviews, all in the one issue, of three books concerned with the Devil. With this evidence, then, of a resurgence of interest in what Percy Scholes calls in the Oxford Companion to Music "this celebrated composer," we draw your attention to the starting time of "Speaking of the Devil’"-8.0 p.m. on Monday, May 20, at 1YA. Barlasch from 2YA E have already printed Val Gielgud’s article introducing the BBC serial Barlasch of the Guard, adapted from the book by H. Seton Merriman, which is running at Station 3YL on Sunday evenings, but as it is due to finish there shortly and begin on Station 2YA, this paragraph is a warning to those listeners who can’t get 3YL, and want to hear the serial. It has ten episodes, and was adapted for radio by Norman Edwards and produced by Val Gielgud and Martyn C. Webster. The famous actor Henry Ainley plays the part of Barlasch. The first instalment will be heard from 2YA at 8.4 p.m. on Saturday, May 25. Drama in the Open — JORMA COOPER, whose talk on "Christie’s" we mentioned on this page last week, is to give another talk from 2YA at 10.25 am. on Monday, May 20, called "The Open Air Theatre." It is based on what she saw just before the war when she was private secretary to Sydney Carroll, the film and drama critic, who started the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park in 1933. Miss Cooper will tell her listeners how Carroll decided to make the experiment, and how the first summer favoured the venture; what happened when a _ thunderstorm broke up the final rehearsal for the opening of the 1939 season; and how their surroundings give the stage an unusual charm in the long English twilight. — And in the Country UDITH TERRY, whose talks from 1YA are well known to Auckland listeners, recently undertook a_ tour through country districts in the Auckland province to give lectures on amateur dramatic production. She has since written four talks for the NBS about her experiences on this tour, and the first of these will be heard from Station 2YA at 11.0 a.m. on Saturday, May 25. She will describe some of the places she went to, and will talk about the interest being shown in drama by the groups ‘she talked to. Sonata Series EETHOVEN’S VIOLIN SONATAS are to be played from the studio of Station 2YA by Maurice Clare and

Frederick Page, who have lately been giving a series of sonatas by "Nationalist" composers. The ten sonatas will be played, at the rate of two a week, starting at 8.0 p.m. on Thursday, May 23, with No. 1 in D Major. The second sonata will be played at 8.5 p.m. on the following Sunday, May 26. Mr. Clare will preface his playing with some introductory comments on the sonatas. Hansel and Gretel UMPERDINCK’S delightful fairy opera about the two little children who killed the crunch-witch in her own oven and brought back to life all the gingerbread children she had _ baked will be featured in the series "Music

from the Theatre" on Station 1YA at 9.33 p.m. on Sunday, May 26. "Hansel and Gretel’. was first given at Christmas time in Germany in 1893, and its popularity spread so quickly that it was done in an English version in London the following Christmas. Hansel and Gretel, the hungry children of a broom-maker, are sent into the woods by their mother, to pick wild strawberries. Night falls, and the crunch-witch catches Hansel and puts him in a cage. But clever Gretel asks the witch to show her how to look into the oven, and pushes her in, with the help of Hansel, who has escaped from the cage. All the children who have been baked into gingerbread come back to life, the parents arrive on the scene, and the opera closes with the dances of the children. New Play Th HE ROTTERS," the stage play by ~ HL, ¥. Maltby about the comical tragedy of a respectable family-man, has been adapted as a radio play by Cynthia Pughe, and an NBS production of it will be broadcast from 2YA on Sunday, May 26. We have asked our artist to imagine the scene at one of the worst moments in this unfortunate family’s embarrassing story, and his drawing appears dn page 44 in this issue. "The Rotters" is about a respectable middle-class man who is most anxious that all his family should be models of respectability in the towm where he is a prominent citizen-but one after another they disgrace themselves in their own ways-all but father. Eventually the character whom our artist has por: trayed walks into the home and adds the final touch to the family shame. Readers who want a further explanation

of the illustration should have no difficulty if they become listeners, and tune in at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, May 26. Elephant Music YEAR or two ago, when the Americans were here, a programme of music by Stravinsky which included a performance of his new Symphony in C Major was broadcast here, from recordings made available through the Special Service Division of the U.S. War Department. One item in that programme, which proved to be something of a futore at the original -performance in

America, was a Circus Polka composed for a Young Elephant-written by Stravinsky for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Later, the Special Service Division recordings had to go back to America, so this little piece went back too, and we have heard nothing more of it until now, when we notice that an arrangement of it has been made by someone called Babitz, and the Christchurch violinist Margaret Sicely is going to play this in a recital beginning at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, May 24, from Station 2YA. Memory tells us that there was a comical quotation of a very well known tune somewhere in it. We — Mr. Babitz has left it there.