THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 392, 27 December 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

_ A Run Through The Programmes

Ring in the New ‘ARIOUS different ways have been adopted by various different stations to mark the occasion of 1946 yielding to 1947. The main National stations, for instance, are all going to play dance music or light fare of one sort or another frorn some time after 11.0 p.m, until around 1.0 a.m. in the first day of the New Year. In Auckland, in case no one knows the key, 1YA will put on a record of Auld Lang Syne at exactly 11.58 p.m. In Wellington there will be "Hogmanay" from the studio at 11.15 p-m., then old-time stuff, and latter-day dance music till 1.0 am. In Christchurch there will be "A-Wassailing" at 7.53, "Hogmanay" at 9.30, old-time dan¢e music at 11.15 p.m., the Cathedral Belle and the noises made by the revelling: citizenry in The Square. Just after midnight there will be a pause for reflection; a prayer will be offered by the Rey. J. Lawson Robinson. Dunedin, which has no need to be self-consciously Scottish, forswears "Hogmanay" and all such, and austerely withholds its ac-’ knowledgment of the occasion until there are only 10 minutes to go. Then, and not before, 4YA will play "Cock o’ -the North" and some "Auld Scots Songs." a % ws STATIONS 2YH, 3ZR and 4YZ each | have their several ways of marking the occasion-community singing from the Napier Sound Shell, with ceremonial tolling of some ship’s bell they have up there; something called "Join the Party" from 3ZR; and the Caledonian Pipe Band will be at 4YZ from 11.40 p.m. on. All the minor stations will close down demurely at 10.0 p.m., some sulkily without so much as a nod towards the revellers; but 2YD will have a fling for its last half-hour, with a programme called "Good-bye 1946," and it will come on the air again at 7.0 p.m. on January 1, 1947, with a prophetic programme, some kind of forecast maybe, called "Hits of the Year." Jascha Heifetz NTIL a week or two ago, it was not permitted to broadcast here gramophone records made by Jascha Heifetz, the famous violihist. This ban had been imposed-by Heifetz himself-for some years, and it was one of those things, like all matters involving the law of copyright in another country, where the complications were enough to frighten off anyone who might have sought te give a clear explanation. But if we were never quite clear why the ban was on, it is now quite a simple thing to say the ban is off. This releases, for radio owners who want to hea -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

them, such things as William Walton’s Violin Concerto (which was dedicated to Heifetz and could only be recorded at first by him), a violin concerto by Glazounov, another by Vieuxtemps, and of course many other shorter things. The Sibelius violin concerto, also, which until recently had been recorded only by

Heifetz, can now be played in the version he made. Some Heifetz records will have already been on the air when this Listener comes out. But Auckland, Well-_ ington and Christchurch will all make use of this new opportunity next week at the following times: 1YA, Friday, January 3, 9.34 p.m., Concerto No. 4 (Vieuxtemps); 2YA, Tuesday, December 31, 9.30 p.m., William Walton’s Violin Concerto; 3YA, Sunday, January 5, 10.45 a.m., "Instrumental Interlude." The Pied Piper HE choir of Marsden School, Wellington, will be heard from 2YA next week in a performance of George Rathbone’s setting of Robert Browning’s poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." It was recorded by the NZBS in the school’s Assembly Hall before the end of the term, and will be broadcast at 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, January 2. The conductor of the choir is Marjorie J. Fearn, and

the accompanist, Christobel Nation. This is a different setting from the one recently broadcast from 2YA by the Eastbourne Lyric Singers (which was by Walford Davies). It is one of four ciildren’s cantatas written by George Rathbone, an English pianist and composer. French‘ Composer (GABRIEL FAURE, the French composer, who was born in 1845 and died in 1924, has been the subject of increased interest in Britain over the last few years, and more of his music has been coming to be ‘known outside his own country. is centenary was marked last year with performances of music that had been unfamiliar before, and new recordings have been made of some of his larger works. Only this year, too, a book on Fauré has been published in English. A translation of the study written in 1927 by Charles Koechlin (a pupil of Fauré) appeared in Britain last, a ene a ee ee,

February, and since then a book by Norman Suckling has been added to Dent’s Master Musicians series. Half-an-hour of Fauré’s music will be heard from 2YA at 7.30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve-includ-ing the Ballade for Piano and Orchestra, the song "In the Ruins of an Abbey," and an Elegy for ’cello and piano-and Dorothy Helmrich will feature three more songs by Fauré in her first recital (1YA, Sunday, January 5). Music of Glamour Mess HART’S Broadway show Lady in the Dark which came here in a film version (with Ginger Rogers) as the vanguard of what our’film critic calls "the psychologicals," had songs in it written by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. Kurt Weill is a German (born in 1900), who was best known in Europe (before he went West) for a kind of modern Begégar’s Opera he once wrote. And Ira Gershwin is the brother of George; he used to write the lyrics of George’s songs. Six of the songs these two wrote for Lady in the Dark when it was first done on Broadway have been recorded by Gertrude Lawrence (who presumably was the Lady at that stage), and Station 3YA is going to play them at 8.24 p.m. on Thursday, January 2. Lapidivore \V HEN our early copies came to hand of 2YA’s programmes for next week we found that someone had typed the title of the play to be heard from that station on Sunday, January 5, as This Sheet Made News. It was a logical enough statement, and one no newspaper could refuse to print. But it didn’t happen to be the name of the play. It was a Sheep. H. R. Jeans wrote the script, which is a funny one; and as he ‘intended it, the play was about a very sheepish sheep that swallowed a very valuable diamond or something of the kind, and then had the most curious adventures, because the whereabouts of that diamond was known, and everyone -everyone in the play anyway-was vitally interested in the outcome. What happened in the end we forget, but you can find out by listening-in-9.32 p.m. Sunday, January 5. ’ Visiting Singer [DOROTHY HELMRICH, the Australian soprano, who toured the National stations last January, will be here again next week, and her first broadcast will be from 1YA on Sunday, January 5 (at 8.20 p.m.) when she will sing a group of modern French songs. On the following Wednesday, Dorothy Helmrich will sing Schumann’s song cycle The Poet's Love, and two nights later, Brahms’s "Gipsy Songs." Her accompanist then and throughout her tour will be Frederick Page, of Wellington. After leaving Auckland, Miss Helmrich will sing from 2YA_ (Schubert’s cycle The Maid of the Mill, in two re- ----_-|-, cCitals), then 3YA (three re-

citals, including Brahms’s "Four Serious Songs" and "Eight Gipsy Songs"), then 4YA (three recitals, including Schumann’s A Woman’s Life and Love), and then. back to Wellington in the first week of February, when she will sing Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer. Her tour. will end with a final broad-» cast from 1YA on February A