THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 379, 27 September 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

William Morris HE 50th anniversary of the death ot William Morris will be marked by the broadcast from 2YA at 3.0 p.m. this Sunday, September 29, of a talk prepared by Dr. Gerda Eichbaum.. William Morris was one of the less characteristic Victorian reformers, coming to his socialist convictions by the unusual route of his devotion to art and the ideal of beauty. He was deeply influenced by the mediaeval ideal, as shown by his many romantic verses about lovely maidens imprisoned in dank towers. But his attachment to the Middle Ages was not so great that he was biind to the society around him. On the contrary, his social conscience was extremely active: he loved all beautiful things and was passionately ,indignant at the fact that only a few people in society were able to enjoy them. Throughout his life he fougat for the ideal expressed in his words, "I don’t want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few. What business have we with art unless all can share it?" "It is necessary," he wrote elsewhere, "that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing and be of itself pleasant to do." A photograph of Morris appears among People in the Programmes in this issue. Brahms on Two Pianos RAHMS’S Variations on a Theme of Haydn, (St. Antoni Chorale) are often broadcast and are well known and liked by listeners in their orchestral form, but they exist in another version, made by the composer, which is not heard so often--an arrangement for two pianos. This is to be played from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Tuesday, October 1, by Therle Oswin and Lionel Harris. Brahms composed the Variations in 1873; the orchestral version. is Opus 56a, the twopiano version Opus 56b. He made the two-piano version shortly after the orcnes‘ral one. Reginarum Amicae ARY WIGLEY’S series of Tuesday afternoon talks from 3YA, under the title Friends of Famous Queens, will acquaint listeners with nine such persons, all women. In the first, to be heard at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 1, che will talk about Sarah@ Jennings, Queen Anne’s friend, and in later talks she will discuss the friendships of the Princesse de Lamballe and Marie Antoinette, Fanny Burney and Queen Caroline, the Four Maries and Mary, Queen of Scots (whose ladies-in-waiting they were) and some other intimates of feminine royal‘y. The Land of Beulah ‘THE Rev. H. G. Naylor’s choice for a Land of Fantasy to be the subject of his readings from 1YA at 835 /p-m. on Friday, October 4, is the Land of Beulah. Beulah was mentioned. in Isaiah, but it is from Bunyan that we have a detailed description. It lay beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death and was also out of the reach of Giant Despair. Its air was "very sweet and pleasant," and when the Pilgrims reached it, "the way lying directly through it,

they solaced themselves there for a season; yea, here they heard continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the flowers appear in the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the land." Paul Temple Again TATION 2YD is to begin a new Paul Temple serial, produced by the BBC, at 9.20 p.m. on Monday, September 30, called Send for Paui Temple Again. Mendoza’s drawing, printed here, sets the scene for the first instalment. This serial, which has eight episodes, should

satisfy even listeners whose enjoyment is in proportion to the amount of murdering done. In the first instalment there are several murders, all equally mysterious, committed by someone who scrawls the letters REX somewhere at,the scene of the crime-one murder takes place in a BBC studio during a Brains Trust session! The Paul Temple stories are written by Francis Durbridge, and Martyn C. Webster has produced this one for the BBC, with Barry Morse in the title role. Verse as Well |F your means of musical expression is simply bath-time chorus virtuosity, you have probably long ago come to the end of your repertoire, and even the heaviest of splashings may not be #ufficient to drown your voice or whistle to the comfort of other members of the household. But if you listen-in to Station 2YA this Saturday, September 28, at 8.28 p.m. and on succeeding Saturdays, you will be able to add the verse to the choruses, by way of compensating variety, for Jeannie McPherson will sing the verses of popular songs from which you will be expected, if you care to, to pick the song’s title. The answer will be in the chorus. This new feature will be on the air for about six weeks. Bronte Centennial QNE HUNDRED years have now passed since the Bronté sisters produced their first literary work-a joint volume of verse published under the

pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. A talk by W. S. Shires, to be given from 4YA at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, October 6, will mark this centennial, and in it Mr. Shires will describe the upbringing and lives of the three sisters, and discuss the relation of their environment to their works. Inspector Cobbe Remembers EPLACING Passport to Danger on Thursday evenings, a new BBC series called Inspector Cobbe Remembers is about to begin from 4YO Dunedin. The first episode, called "The Oxshott Murder Case," will be heard at 8.45 on Thursday, October 3. Like the others in the series, written specially for broadcasting by Mileson Horton, it provides a "sound" clue which gives the criminal away-a clue, that is, which will really tell the story to the man who listens with critical attention. It is some kind of noise which is inconsistent with something somebody says. In other words, this is not merely a radio version of the detective story. It is also a radio version of the crossword. Violin and Piano N a weekly series of six recitals Ina Bosworth (violinist) and Lalla Keys (pianist) will play sonatas by Corelli, Bach, Beethoven, Hindemith, Milhaud and Richard Strauss. They are to be heard from 1YA on Wednesday evenings, the first on October 2 at 7.30. The following sonatas will be played in the series, in the order given: A Major No. 6, Corelli (1653-1713); E Minor, J. S. Bach (1685-1750); A Major, Op. 12, No. 2, Beethoven (1770-1827); Op. 11, No. 1, Paul Hindemith (born 1895); B Major, Darius Milhaud (born 1892); and E Flat, Op. 18, Richard Strauss (born 1864),