ITEMS FROM THE ZB'S

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 419, 4 July 1947, Page 14

ITEMS FROM THE ZB'S

Stokowski Programme Cee are at variance in views on WLeopold Stokowski. Some of them praise his work with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra; others are almost vitriolic in their criticisms. Stokowski, the picturesque 65-years-old American orchestral conductor, is well known to: New Zealanders. The cinema has made his features familiar, and the radio has introduced his work to this country. He was born in London, in 1882, of a Polish father and an Irish mother. He played the violin and piano as a child, and studied composition at Queen’s College, Oxford, with Parry and Stanford. He went to New York as organist and choirmaster of St. Bartholomew’s Church, in 1905, and seven years later became conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra which he brought to a high level. He is recognised as a pioneer who introduced unfamiliar music of both the past and the present to American audiences, His enthusiasm for modern music is demonstrated by the fact that he was the first man in the United States to conduct modern compositions such as Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, Les Noces, Oedipus Rex and Renard. But he did not disregard more orthodox works. A special half-hour programme featuring Stokowski will be heard from 1ZB at 9.30 p.m on Sunday, July 6. This programme will touch on the life and characteristics of the conductor, and his work will be illustrated by a selection of recordings, including Prelude in A Flat (Shostakovich),.chorales from Bach’s Easter Cantata, a section of the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovski), Le Sacre du Printemps (Stravinsky), part of the "Magic Fire Music" from The Valkyrie (Wagner) and Sarabande (Bach). * % % TATION 2ZA’s Manawatu Magazine editor, Ian Watkins, visited the seedtesting station at Palmerston North on Sunday, June 29, at 6.30 p.m., to describe the work carried out. there. This coming Sunday, July 6, at the same time, there will be a discussion in the Magazine of the aims and objects of the Feilding Community Centre, with the founder, H. C. D. Somerset, taking part. Sake a * % ‘THE British dance band leader, Jay Wilbur, who is now living in Christchurch, is being heard from 3ZB in a series of six programmes on Sundays, at 5.30. p.m., under the ;title, My Life in Music. Jay Wilbur tells of his experiences on the stage and with dance bands taking listeners back to the time when he was a boy chorister, and from then on through his eventful musical career. "See % % oy ether M ODERN. Piano Styles is the title of a programme to be heard from 2ZB on Friday, July 11, at 9.45 a.m. It will include recordings by Sefton Daly and Carmen Cavallero whose istinctive arrangements have made them popular with ZB listeners. .