THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 417, 20 June 1947, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through the Programmes

! Springboks on Tour \V HILE the All Blacks are showing Australia how Rugby should be | played--or should not, as the case may | be-an Association Football team from Sou.h Africa will give New Zealand a taste of its methods in using the round ball. For the benefit of Soccer followers, arrangements have been made by the NZBS to broadcast commentaries on some of the matches, the first of which will be against Auckland this Saturday, June 21. The Sprinboks will play against Wellington on Wednesday, June 25; against a New Zealand eleven at Christ- | church on Saturday, June 28; v. Otago, on Wednesday, July 2;'v. New Zealand at Otago, on Saturday, July 5; against Canterbury on Wednesday, July 9; a second test at Wellington on Saturday, | July 12, and the final test at Auckland | on Saturday, July 19. The broadcasts will be from the local YA station in each | case. There will be direct commentaries _on each of the Saturday matches, but on the Wednesdays, owing to power restrictions, results and a short review wili be* given in the link-up at 6.40 p.m. Each ma‘ch will start at 2.45 p.m. London Radio Orchestra [HE London Radio Orchestra, under its conductor, Dr. Denis Wright (see photograph on page 25), has recorded a new series of programmes which have been issued by the BBC Transcription Service, and listeners to 4YA and 2YA will hear them on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. The chief aim of the orchestra, which was formed in 1945, is to cover as wide a field as possible of the better class light mu-.ic and the smaller symphonic works that do not need the full forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Denis Wright joined the music staff of the BBC in 1936. He is a composer aNd conductor and one of the leading British authorities on brassband music. For some time past his pecial task has been to act as musical adviser to the BBC Transcription Service and as liaison between that service and the various sections of the BBC | Music Department. In his early days | he combined the teaching of music with | that of modern languages. Music in Miniature _ [HE idea behind "Music in Miniature," a new broadcast series, came | up at a meeting in the BBC’s music depar._ment. Discussion hed turned to the | kind of music that people like; whether /a@ person gets so much into the; habit of listening to a certain type of musical programme that he seldom, if ever, tunes in to any other kind, or, in course of time, even per:uades himself that he does not like other forms of music. Tied up with that, of course, was the question of the label that siicks to various programmes: ‘classical,’ "chamber," "light," "swing" and so forth; and whether it ever puts listeners off. Ronald Biggs, Music Programme Organiser, made a suggestion, He believes that there is any amount of good music of all types that is not heard, either because listeners are scared by the label bogey or, conversely, because programme builders are often unable to fit it into the frame of existing programmes. "Let

us," he said, "avoid putting any preconceived idea into listeness’ heads. Let’s build a series of programmes where the music speaks for itself, without a label. Never mind what type of music it is, so long as it’s good. We'll just play it without preliminary announcements, and then, when they’ve heard it, tell listeners what it was."’ So that’s how "Music in Miniature" went on the air, with Basil Douglas in charge of production. You hear the title of the series, the names of the artists, and then half an hour of good music, non-stop, with the titles given at the end. And in these programmes you'll be hearing not only tunes that you like, but also, perhaps, tunes that you wouldn’t have expected to like if you had gone by the label. Possibly, you'll also ‘hear tunes you don’t like-but the other listener probably will, and fair’s fair! The artists to be heard in the programme 4YA will broadcast at 9.22 p.m, on Sunday, June 29, are Lucille Wallace (harpsichordist), Pierre Bernac, baritone, the Michael Krein Saxophone Quartet, and the Aeolian String Quartet. Lucille’ Wallace is an American and is married to the English pianist, Clifford Curzon. Premier Programme F the celebrated Mr. Hooper, whose self-imposed task it has been to grade American radio programmes in order of public interest, were ever to survey the New Zealand rddio field the odds are that his highe t listener-rating would go, not to any dramatic feature or studio session, but to the daily broadcasts made from Parliament while the House is in session. He would probably find that mental attitudes differed violently from listener to listener, but there would al-

most certeinly be few adults who would dismiss a3 uninteresting these broadcasts of democracy at work. And that, of course, simply proves. that democracy does work, It is, therefore, important to remind listeners that Parliament will be back on the air next Puesday, June 24, when the House elected last November will open its first session. Formal business only will be dealt wi-h on the first day, but from June 25 the House will tackle a heavy programme of work, which will include foreign affairs as well as domestic politics. As usual, while 2YA is broadcasting Parliament, 2YC _ will take over 2YA’s normal programme. For Amateur Sleuths | ISTENERS who tune in to 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, June 27, will find themselves mixed up in a murderin a radio station. It will occur in a mystery-comedy-thriller by the Australian playwright Max Afford, who has ingeniously pointed the finger at so many

different people that most followers of Mischief in the Air will be baffled almost to the end. But he will afford the real crime fiction addicts an opportunity to do some sleuthing on their own. As the play proceeds, they can eliminate, or otherwise, the tired technician, the rhetorical announcer, and the disgruntled listener who had tuned in to a stock market report when he wanted Bing. As a stage show, Mischief in the Air had a successful run at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, and the radio version is played by the original stage cast, the principals of which are Aileen Britton, John McCallum, John O’Malley, and Edward Howell. Don Giovanni an Early Riser? ‘THE truly observant reader, who might be presumed to know Don Giovanni when he sees him, must have wondered what was our authority for suggesting last week that ‘this celebrated liberiine was an early riser. (For the unobservant reader, we might explain here that Russell Clark’s picture of Don Giovanni encountering the statue of the Commandant appeared on this page last week, illustrating a paragraph about early rising). Well, the answer makes us blush. Certainly the picture showed a Man with a Candle, and but for the Statue we might have got away with it, but as Leporello considered, it pays to tell the truth: we have no authority for saying that Don Giovanni was an early riser. Far from it; we doubt it. That picture just got into the wrong place. It was meant to carry a caption telling you that Mozart’s opera is to be broadcast by 1YA this Sunday and next (June 22 and 29), So if anybody still wonders whether Don Giovanni was or was not an early riser, they could tune in to 1YA at the appropriate times.