THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 447, 16 January 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

| A Run Through The Programmes

Germany and the Future \ HAT measures are necessary to enable the German universities to play their part in a new democratic Germany? This question, and some others of equal importance will be discussed in a talk by David Martineau Tombs from 2YA at 7.15 p.m. on Monday, January 19. Mr. Tombs (as our readers will recall) was a member of a delegation from the English Association of University Teachers which, at the request of the Foreign Office, went to Germany early in 1947 to visit the universities in the British Zone and to advise on university reconstruction there. In a further talk on Monday, January 26, he will attempt to answer questions relating to contrasts between the democratic way of life in which, he says, the objective is a fully-grown individual, and the Fascist way of life, in which the individual is useful only in so far as he is a "yes" man in a State machine-"the divinity of the individual contrasted with the divinity of the State." Story of Anaesthetics [N 1799 Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that laughing gas not only made you laugh, but deadened pain as well. Similar anaesthetic properties in ether were discovered by Faraday in 1818, but it was not until 1842 that an anaesthetic was used in a surgical operation by the American doctor, Crawford D. Long. The story of the development of anaesthetics, from the first tentative experiments by dentists in Britain and America to the immense advances that anaesthesia has made possible in modern surgery, makes fascinating listening as the BBC have told it in their programme The Fight Against Pain. Produced originally to mark the centenary of .the first use of anaesthetics, The Fight Against Pain will be heard by listeners to 4YA at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 20. More Otago History S part of its contribution to Otago’s Centennial Celebrations, Station 4ZB is broadcasting a series of talks by Dr. A. H. McLintock, official historian and director of historical publications for the Centennial Committee. These talks, which are being given under the title This Was Otago, will deal with the early history of the province, particularly the period following the arrival of the immigrant ships John Wickliffe and Philip Laing. Dr. McLinto¢k has already taken part in the weekly talks from 4YA, which began last October to trace the main thread of Otago’s development, and this further contribution by him will be appreciated by those who have already heard some of his able and ° judiciously worded historical surveys. Much of the material used in these talks comes from hitherto unpublished documents and letters which have been made available by descendants of early settlers. The first talk in the series This Was Otago was broadcast from 4ZB at 7.45 p.m. on Thursday, January 15. The Man Without a Mask ‘THE name of William Blake, artist and poet, is associated to-day very largely with his Jerusalem, which has become almost a second national anthem among Britons. The reference to "dark

satanic mills" in that poem gives the clue to Blake’s whole outlook on life, as you will hear in the BBC programme The Man Without a Mask, for Blake struggled wholeheartedly against the dark satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The Man Without a Mask was compiled by the BBC from aa

Dr. J. Bronowski’s book of the same title, and Bronowski borrowed the expression from a description of Blake by a young painter who revered his memory: "His aim was single, his path straightforward, and his wants few. So he was free, noble and happy. He Was a man without a mask." Blake was more recently described as "a prophet, craftsman and political thinker, too sane for his own times, and still ahead of ours." The Man Without a Mask will be heard from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Sunday, January 25. Black, Brown, and Ebony "HE boundaries between classical music and swing can’t be so firmly fixed as they appear when a swing expert, Duke Ellington, can write @ sustained and skilful piece of music, Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), and a celebrated classical composer, Igor Stravinsky, can write an Ebony Concerto (1946), for jazz-band. These two works, which received a remarkable reception when they were first played in New York, will be heard from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, January: 24. The Ebony Concerto is not jazz in the accepted sense, but consists rather of three studies for jazz-band in which the composer experiments with jazz-band instrumentation. Black, Brown and Beige, subtitled "A Saga of the Negro in America," is in four parts; "Work Song," a recollection of the past days of slave labour; "Come Sunday,"describing the Sunday mood of rest and adoration out of which the Spiritual was born; "The Blues," the typically Negro style of music supposed to have evolved out of the Civil War; and finally, "Three Dances." Comus HISTORIANS tell us that Ludlow Castle was the last Royalist stronghold in Shropshire to yield to the Parliamentary forces in 1646, but the Castle is probably more famous for being the setting for the first presentation, 12

years earlier, of the greatest of all masques-Comus. Milton, who later became one of the greatest opponents of _the Royalist cause, wrote Comus as a graceful compliment to the Earl of Bridgewater’s young family, who performed it in the Castle on September 29, 1634. It is a far cry from that "first night" to the BBC’s radio version of Milton’s classic, but there is a link between the two performances, for the text of the broadcast version is based on the Bridgewater MS, which differs somewhat from the generally accepted text as revised by Milton. The Masque of Comus will be heard from 1YA at 4.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 25. Father of Musick WILLIAM BYRD was a founder of the English Madrigal School and one of the greatest musicians of the 16th Century. He held the title of "Father of Musick," by which he was known to his peers in England, chiefly by reason of his three’ great masses, which are in three, four and five parts. The critic Edward Lockspeiser said of them recently, "Byrd employs the style of imitation with remarkable dexterity and achieves expressive contrasts between homophony and polyphony. Effects of realism are used, revealing a madrigalian origin of his vocal style, and he is not afraid of bold dissonances. An emotional sense of unity is displayed in the masses, particularly in the fivepart work. Unconsciously following the example of Palestrina in Italy, Byrd liberated the mass from the popular. canto fermo." Byrd also wrote large numbers of madrigals and other secular music, and composed works for strings and keyboard. His Mass for Five Voices, sung by the Fleet Street Choir, will be heard from 4YZ at 3.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 25.