THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 363, 7 June 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

| A Run Through The Programmes

"How Green Was My Valley" ‘THIS Sunday evening, June 9, Station 2YD will begin a new serial, replacing The Green Archer, which was shown in the printed programmes in our last issue. The new serial is an Australian dramatisation of Richard Llewellyn’s best-selling novel of life in a Welsh mining village, How Green Was My" Valley. Its first instalment will be heard at 9.33 p.m. this Sunday, June 9. How Green Was My Valley was heard from some of the Commercial stations some time ago, but this is the first time it has been scheduled by one of the National stations. Dvorak’s American Music WO of the compositions that Dvorak wrote when he was in America from 1892 to 1895 will be heard in 3YA’s Chamber Music programme on Monday evening, June 10. At 9.30 p.m. Eva Christeller (violinist), and Marjorie Robertson (pianist) will play the Sonatina, Opus 100, which in its slow movement has a tune said to have been a version of an American Indian song, and which has in its other movements also strong points of resemblance to Dvorak’s other American compositions, the "New World" Symphony and the "Nigger" Quartet, Opus 96. At 9.45 a recording of the "Nigger" Quartet, made by the Budapest String Quartet, will also be played No Offence Meant O Scotsman will be able to actuse Station 1YA of insulting innuendo on Monday evening, June 10, when so much care has plainly been taken to avoid giving a wrong impression. Readers will note that the last of the questions listed for the Brains Trust Session that evening (starting at 8.26 p.m.) is this: "How is it determined that music is good or bad?" and the very next music 1YA proposes to play is the Scottish Interlude. Now if 1YA had put Pipe-Major D. R.:McLennan’s "Scottish Garland" straight on after the Brains Trust Session, we would quite see their point. But in between are Station Notices, Weather Report, Newsreel and commentary, to say nothing of the ringside commentary on the boxing in the Town Hall, and even then there will be a recording of some tolerable though Scottish songs before the pipe record begins. : Purau URAU, a bay on Lyttelton harbour, has a history filled with romance ard adventure. It was the home of some of the earliest of Canterbury’s pioneer settlers. Blue Cap and his bush-ranging gang raided the Greenwood Brothers’ place there, and the Bay was the scene of an unsuccessful experiment in raising alpaca goats-sheep turned out to be: much more satisfactory. But the opening of the Little River Railway destroyed Purau’s prosperity and now the little bay has settled down to a quiet life. A talk on Purau, prepared by David

— Delany from material collected by the late Esther Glen, of Christchurch, will be heard from 3YA at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 11. Treasure Island NEW "Have You Read"?" programme, this time on Treasure Island, will be heard from Station 3YA at 10.01 p.m. on Wednesday, June 12. For those who find the question superfiuous, the programme will revive memories of a book that has thrilled thousands of youngsters with its buccaneers, throatslitting, and hunt for buried treasure. It will renew the thrill of meeting that

smooth villain Long John Silver, hearing the menacing tap-tap of Blind Pew’s stick-whose portrait (done by Mendoza) we print here. R. L. Stevenson wrote Treasure Island for his stepson, Lloyd Osborne, and had it printed in parts. in a magazine called Young Folks — because he wanted everyone to wait for a whole month to see what happened to the Squire’s party and the pirates. Garden Music AMPTON COURT PALACE is still one of England’s most beautiful royal palaces; it was the scene last summer in England of a series of serenade concerts by the Jacques String Orchestra, which played in the old orangery some of the music that has historical associations with the place-Handel’s "Alcina," airs and dances by Purcell, the traditional tune "Greensleeves," and~so on. Thése, together with William Byrd’s Fantasy No. 2, have been recorded by the orchestra in a programme called "Music from Hampton Court Palace," which will be heard from 3YA at 9.25 p.m. on Friday, June 14. Zodiacal Ballet TATION 4YA’s evening programme on Saturday, June 15, will open with music from the ballet Horoscope, by Constant Lambert, played by the British Ballet Orchestra. The story and thie music were both written by Lambert, and as he also conducts the performance, it is something of a one-man show. Horoscope has a simple story (the fates }

of two young people are governed by the influences of the signs of the zodiac under which they were born), and it links together a succession of contrasting moods expressed in terms of music and the dance. Verse Readings HREE of Rupert Brooke’s poems will be read by Simona Packenham and Marius Goring in the programme "Chapter and Verse," which Dunedin and Otago listeners will hear from 4YA at 4.15 p.m. on Sunday, June 16. Among them is "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," in which there is a happy blend of Brooke’s deep feeling for the English countryside and his delightful sense of humour: Stands the church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea? Brooke wrote the poem in Berlin in 1912, when his surroundings made him long for the quiet peaceable life of Cambridgeshire. Origin of Origin of Species HE caricature of Charles Darwin which is printed on page 44 in this issue draws the listener’s attention to a new "How it was written" programme (from 1YA on June 16), the subject of which is The Origin of Species. In this programme, which was written and produced by Stephen Potter, the part of Darwin is played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Stephen Potter has conceived his main character in the same spirit as the caricaturist-as a man with a fund of humour and an inextinguishable interest in life, rather than the pompous Victorian paterfamilias of the conventional portrait-and he has made a living radio portrait, based on Darwin’s letters and autobiography.