THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Variety from Scotland OT all the BBC variety shows come from London. The various regional stations have their variety departments too, and one example of their output is Heather Mixture, which was recorded | from the Glasgow programmes. This show, introduced by Howard M. Lockhart, presents favourite Scottish artists and visiting guests, among them Cherry Lind, Bruce Trent, Jack Nolden, George McTear, Freda Phillips, and the Scottish Variety Orchestra. Lockhart started out to be a lawyer. but while at Glasgow University stage work and broadcasting seemed more interesting than torts, and so he joined the BBC. He has produced every conceivable kind of programme, from the Children’s Hour (noises off) to acting, and deputising for announcers. McTear is a novel impressionist who, ever since he was a boy, has studied bird calls. His reproduction of them .is uncannily like the teal thing. Heather Mixture will be heard from 2YA at 9.30 p.m. on Monday, October 6. Living Water N one of those apocryphal sayings often attributed to the great, Sibelius is supposed to have remarked to his publishers one day when handing over a new work: "Other composers offer their listeners a cocktail-I offer them a glass of ice-water." Perhaps this statement is nowhere better exemplified than in his Fourth symphony, which will be heard from 1YX at 9.24 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7. The work is a masterpiece of economy of effect, of -cramming the maximum of thought and emotion into the minimum of time, and contrasts strongly with the size and magnificence of his first two symphonies. Jeffreys Scherek, in his Backgrounds to Music, describes it as "music shorn of frills, music that says what it has to say in the fewest possible notes, and with absolutely no effect for effect’s sake. And what it has to say is always worth saying." There are some passages of tremendous power and many of those peculiar sonorities that will ever delight lovers of Sibelius, This recording is by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Fairburn, the Parent _R. D. FAIRBURN is known to the * general New Zealand public as a man who has filled a number of roles--poet, writer, lecturer, artist-but it is as none of these that he will give a ta'k from 1YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, October 9. That evening he speaks (on physical education) as a parent of schoolage children. He recalls that in his years at school promising athletes were encouraged, but for the rest physical education consisted mainly of "something called physical jerks, rather like a mass performance of St. Vitus dance." However, what happened to him he considers no longer important as he is physically beyond redemption, but what happens to his children is still important. In his talk he stresses the necessity for taking the emphasis from competitive sport for the few and giving general basic training to all. Credit is given by Mr.

Fairburn to the Physical Education Department for recognising this need and making it the corner-stone of its policy. Viva Verdi! HUNDRED years ago, when the Italians were struggling to rid themselves of their Austrian overlords, no musician was more popular with ‘the Italian "underground" than Verdi. He was a stout champion of the cause of independence, and he used his operas

to preach it. In return, the Neapolitans used his name in a kind of cabalistic warfare against the Austrians. "Viva Verdi!" was the Risorgimento equivalent of ‘"V-for-Victory," being a cunning acrostic signifying "Viva Vittorio Emmanuele, Re d'Italia.’ But Verdi’s best-known opera, II] Trovatore, being set in the 15th Century, is free from such political distractions, Of it, the critic Francis Toye wrote last year: "The complication of the libretto, rendered almost unintelligible at times by Verdi's passion for brevity and condensation, has led to its dismissal as being merely absurd. That is unfair; but the fact remains that the opera is of interest to us primarily because of its collection of magnificent, and highly expressive tunes, which have survived imitation, parody, inadequate singing, and barrel organs for nearly a century." I] Trovatore will be heard from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Sunday, October 12. s Music by Children WO recitals by secondary school "pupils will be featured in 2YA’s programmes this week. At 8.12 p.m. on Wednesday, October 8, there will be a studio recital by the Wellington. Girls’ College Choir of A Festival Cantata, ‘a contemporary afrangement by Alfred Read and Michael Diack of music by Bach and Handel. This work consists of choruses, solos and interesting twopiano arrangements, and has attracted considerable attention in England. The score was recently brought to New Zealand by Doris Symes (who will conduct the choir), and this performance is believed to be the first yet attempted in this country. Later in the week-at 8.0 p-m. on Saturday, October 11-there will be a broadcast from the Wellington Town Hall of a Hutt. Valley Memorial Technical College Concert, directed by Rudolph McLay. This is the College’s annual music festival, and the programme will include choral excerpts from Handel’s. Messiah and WHaydn’s Creation, sung by a massed choir of 400 voices, as well as orchestral and solo performances by the College orchestra of 150 pieces. Two of the choral items

to be sung are compositions by Dr. V. E. Galway, Professor of Music at Otago University. From Spain EXT week an hour will be devoted by 3YL to music by the founders of ‘the modern Spanish school, and for this programme representative vocal, piano and orchestral works by Falla, Granados, Albeniz, and Turina have been selected. Towards the end-of the last century, at a time when France and Germany were experiencing a musical expansion, Spanish music had become particularly stereotyped and innocuous, and the only composer with any original ideas (Pedrell) had been continually frustrated in his efforts to place Spain once more on the map. But his ideas were adopted by a group of younger men who injected new life by the incorporation of traditional folk-tunes as thematic material. Falla is to-day the most widely-known of these men, although the founder of this modern "national" school was Albeniz, in whose "Iberia". suite (selections from which will be heard) an idealised Spanish etmosphere is.evoked with great richness of effect. Turina and Granados also took their inspiration from scenes of Spanish life worked out in a romantic and exotic manner. The programme will be heard from 3YL at 9.0 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7. For Manawatu Listeners | NCREASED hours of broadcasting to Manawatu district listeners by Station 2ZA will mean more variety in the programmes. Home decorating will alternate with drama, and sporting news with hints for men who put in their week-ends growing dollar-free potatoes in the home garden. From Monday, October 6, 2ZA’s new hours will be: Monday to Friday, 7.0 to 10.30 a.m., and 6.30 to 10.0 p.m.; Saturday broadcasts will be continuous from 7.0 a.m. to 10.0 p.m. and the hours on Sundays will be from 8.0 a.m. to 10.0 p.m. Details of the extended programmes will be found on our programme pages.