THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 381, 11 October 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Live Men Tell Their Tales "T HREE new programmes in the BBC series They Lived to Tell the Tale appear in this week’s NZBS _ programmes: On Monday, October 14, 1YA will broadcast "Italian Odyssey" at 8.43 p.m., and 3YA will broadcast "British Saboteur" at 10.0 p.m. "Italian Odyssey" is a dramatization of the . amazing escape from an Italian prison camp of Lieutenants George Millar and Wally Binns. In the first attempt, they were caught trying to leave in Italian uniforms and threatened with being shot as spies, but Millar and Binns spiked the Italian Colonel’s guns by pointing

out that they were wearing British Army boots. "British Saboteur" (3YA) is’ the story-told by himself-of a British saboteur who parachuted into France, and took a hand in blowing up several factories. In a fight with the Gestapo he was shot six times in the chest and shoulder, but the French underground got him back to England safely. Station 4YA, at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, October 20, will broadcast "Escape from Buchen-wald"-told by one of the few survivors of the small -handful of British subjects | who were inside Buchenwald Camp. He | was saved from execution, and got away from the camp, reaching the British lines with an SS man as his prisoner. Schola Cantorum HE first part of a programme of music on. religious themes, early and modern, to be given in Wellington on Thursday, October 17, by the Schola Cantorum (conducted by Stanley Oliver) will be broadcast by 2YA, beginning at 8.0 p.m. In the broadcast there will be two short works by the 16th Century English composer, Thomas Whythorne, and Bach’s motet "Jesu Joy and Treasure." The Whythorne pieces are "Grace before meat" and "Grace after meat" (1571). They are transcribed and edited by Peter Warlock, who took tare to preserve the discords and false relations that were common in music at that time, and in later times thought to be mistakes. The Bach motet is the same one as was recently broadcast from 1YA by the Auckland University College Choral Society, but the translation of the words used in this version is by C. S. Terry, so that the title is "Jesu Joy and Treasure" instead of "Jesu Priceless Treasure." There are 11 movements, including five versions of the chorale which gives the motet its title. They Catch ‘Em Young XCEEDED in importance only by such well-established industries as blackberrying and the refloating of grounded colliers, the whitebait fisheries of the West Coast well merit the attention which is to be given them by

that indefatigable chronicler of the New Zealand scene, J. D. McDonald, in a recorded talk to be broadcast by 3YA on Thursday, October 17, at 7.15 p.m. For those super-civilised people who know whitebait only as those tiny transparencies which glare at one bug-eyed from tumblers in the fishmonger’s shopwindow, we might mention that in New Zealand they are usually the immature fry of the genus Galaxias (or inanga), that they are caught in nets which seem to the layman ridiculously out of proportion to the size of the fish caught in them, and that the whitebaiters’ fights for favourable positions on the riverbanks is one of the most fruitful sources of those internecine feuds which make life on the West Coast so picturesque, and so precarious. More Drifting Continents ‘THE second discussion in the series being given by Professor V. J. Chapman (botanist) and Dr. K. B. Cumberland (geographer) from 1YA on Thursday evenings will be heard on October 17 at 7.15 p.m.; it will unfold more information on the theory of drifting continents. Here we reproduce a map prepared by the speakers to show how

South America and South Africa may be fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and to show the geological and structural correspondence on either shore of the South Atlantic. As _ this map will be discussed in the session it is reproduced here so that listeners may have it by them at the time. Architect, Dramatist, Man About Town "NO person ever lived, or died, with so few enemies as Sir John Vanbrugh, owing to his pleasant wit and unaffected good humour." That was the opinion of Mark Noble, historian of the College of Arms, on that great archjtect who died on March 26, 1726. Sir,John Vanbrugh has been chosen as the subject of the latest programme in the BBC series, English Architects, which 2YH Napier will present at 6.0 p.m. on Sunday, October 20. As a contemporary said of him, he was "an engaging clever fellow."

And what a varied career! There were not many who could claim to have founded their artistic fortunes while prisoners in the Bastille. His crime was attempting to leave the country without a passport. Architect of many famous English buildings, perhaps his greatest -and certainly his hardest and most thankless task-was the building of Blenheim Palace, the gift of Queen Anne to England’s greatest soldier, the Duke of Marlborough. Prize-winning Composition | ‘His year’s winner of the Philip Neill Memorial prize for composition (and the third winner of the prize since it was established) is the Dunedin musician, Frank Callaway. His Theme and Variations for String Orchestra, the winning composition, will be broadcast from 4YA by the 4YA Concert Orchestra (conducted by Gil Dech) at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, October 20. Mr. Callaway is Director of Music at the King Edward Memorial Technical ‘College, Dunedin. A Basuto Symphonic Poem M ICHAEL MOSOEN MOERANE, the composer of the symphonic poem My Country, which 1YA will broadcast at 7.30 p.m. on Saturday, Qetober 19, is a native of Basutoland, South Africa, and the only man in his country to gain a music degree at a South African Uni- versity. His composition was broadcast in England by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Clarence Raybould, and has been specially recorded by the London Transcription Service of the BBC. Michael Moerane has incorporated several folk-tunes of his own race into My Country.

BROADCAST about the Wellington school children who draw to music (described in an article in our last issue) will be included in the 2ZB Gazette this Sunday, October 13, at 9.1 p.m., instead of October 30, as announced.