THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 367, 5 July 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Inside Stories \WIiTH the idea that the gossip about the lesser figures in literature is sometimes more interesting than their writings, John Reid has arranged a series of eight talks to be heard from 1YA on Friday evenings, beginning on July 12. The first of these talks will be entitled "The Problem of Fiona McLeod," with "The Tragedy of Arthur Rimbaud," "The Myth of Sherlock Holmes," and "The Vagaries of Sir Richard Burton" following. Mr. Reid explains that he has chosen these subjects-and the unusual facts and stories about them rather than their writings-because they add a peculiar tang to literary research. When we suggested that he had settled in for a winter of extensive reading he said "Well, you know, there are 24 hours in every day and they can be filled with much worse things than reading." Conductor Plays HE name of John Barbirolli, the English conductor, appears in the evening programme for 1YA on Saturday, July 13, introducing him in another capacity than the one he is best known for. He will play three pieces for the violoncello. Barbirolli was a ’cellist before he became a conductor, as Toscanini was too. Ormandy, again, was a violinist. Barbirolli made his debut as a ’cellist in 1910, and after the first world war he organised his own chamber orchestra. Conducting appointments followed, and from 1937 to 1940 he conducted the New York Philharmonic. He is now conductor of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester. Want to Hear America Singing? OME American choral music will be heard from 2YA at 9.39 p.m. on Thursday, July 11-a cantata "I Hear America Singing," by George Kleinsinger, and a "Carnival Song from Lorenzo de Medici," by Walter Piston. The cantata is a setting of poems from Walt Whitman, and will be sung by John Charles Thomas, baritone, with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Radio Chorus and the Victor Svmphony Orchestra, conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret. Walter Piston’s "Carnival Song" is sung by the Harvard Glee Club, with the brass ensemble of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and organ, conducted by G. Wallace Woodworth. Benjamin Britten’s Serenade RECORDING has now come to New * Zealand of a work by the English composer Benjamin Britten, which listeners who take an interest in contemporary music will want to hear-Serenade for tenor voice, horn and strings. It was written for the tenor Peter Pears, who recorded Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michaelangelo (which were also written for him), and the horn player Dennis Brain. They are the soloists in this recording, with the Boyd Neel Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The Serenade has a prologue and epilogue for horn. They are identical; between them is a pastiche in which Britten has

set verse by Cotton, Tennyson, Blake, a 15th Century anonymous poet, Ben Jonson, and Keats. The Serenade will be broadcast by 2YA at 9.25 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9. Normalcy Note ‘THE appearance in the programmes of talks on motoring seemed to us when we first noticed it to be an occasion for some sort of congratulation-not selfcongratulation, it is true, since we don’t run to a car ourselves, but some small recognition of the kind the New Yorker would call a "Normalcy Note." Accordingly we invited our artist to celebrate the fact that at 7.15 p.m. on Wednesday, July 10, Station 4YA_ schedules "Our Motoring Commentator." But our artist, whose drawing appears on page 38, is a realist, and a motorist, too, what is more. We reluctantly accept his view of The Truth About Motoring. The Desert Song T 8.20 p.m. on Wednesday, July 10, Station 2YA will broadcast some of the best music from Sigmund Romberg’s popular operetta The Desert Song, from a set of recordings recently received from America, which features Kitty Carlisle, Wilbur Evans, and Felix Knight, and the conductor Isaac van Grove. The programme will include the Opening Chorus, "The Riff Song," "The French Marching Song," "Romance," "Then You Will Know," "The Desert Song," "One Flower in Your Garden," "One Alone" and "The Sabre Song." Sigmund Romberg, the composer, also of "New Moon," "Maytime," and "Up in Central Park." arrived in America from Hungary in 1909, and between 1914 and 1919 wrote 22 Broadway shows. He now lives in Beverley Hills, California, and is writing his autobiography.