THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 454, 5 March 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

, : _ A Run Through The Programmes

| Law Was Abandoned TRAVINSKY, whose works will be heard in 1ZM’s "To-night’s Com- | poser" session on Sunday, March 7, even ' though his father was an opera singer, _was actually trained for the legal pro- | fession, but when travelling in Germany at the age of 20 he met RimskyKorsakov, and this meeting resulted in | his abandoning law to devote himself to ‘music, his training being carried out under the direction of the Russian _master. Several years later he met the : Russian ballet impresario Diaghilef, and | this encounter was to prove as important as the earlier meeting with Rimsky_Korsakov, for the music he was to write _for Diaghilef’s ballet was to establish his fame, and furthermore was to interest serious musicians in ballet, which had hitherto been a despised art. Strav- | insky worked in close accord with the principals of the ballet and continued to collaborate with: Diaghilef and his associates in the Russian Ballet until its end. Almost always Stravinsky’s works have appeared in several successive forms-ballet, opera, orchestral pieces, and examples of this will be noticed in the 1ZM programme. The broadcast begins at 7.0 p.m. New Towns for Old? ‘TOWN planning is very much in the news these days, and the recently expressed views of a visiting English expert must have caused many of us to wonder just how we can improve the lay-out of our cities. In England to-day thé question of building satellite towns to relieve London’s congestion is being hotly discussed, and the expansive schemes of the planners have received a good deal of criticism. Stevenage, a small town of 6,000 people about 28 miles north of London, was scheduled for expansion into a self-contained community nearly 10 times its present size, and in the programme "New Towns for Old," the first of a BBC series, Window on Britain, the points of view of the various people concerned in this undertaking will be heard. The second programme in this BBC series deals with last winter’s fuel crisis, and tells how the colliers got the coal through from Newcastle. "New Towns .for Old" will be heard from 4YA at 9.30 p.m, on Monday, March 8. "Bloody Mary" ENNYSON’S little-known historical drama Queen Mary, made into a radio play by the BBC, will be heard from 1YA at 9.43 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10. It deals with the reign of Henry VIII’s daughter Mary I- familiarly known as Mary Tudor or "the Bloody .| Mary" because of the religious persecutions which characterised her rule. All the principal events of those timesWyatt’s rebellion, the marriage with Philip, the submission of England to Cardinal Pole, Cranmer’s death at the stake, the loss of Calais, and finally the disappointed, unhappy Queen’s death — are vividly portrayed. Though Tennyson’s plays had little success in the theatre, some of Queen Mary’s weaknesses as a stage play have proved advantages in radio. For instance, the error of making

characters in the play describe in detail something that a stage audience can see for itself, becomes a distinct help to a merely listening audience-and many of these descriptive passages show Tennyson at his best. Answers Wanted HILE the majority of questions put to the BBC Brains Trust are such that most listeners with reasonably wide general interests could give some sort of answer, every now and then questions are asked which leave the minds of all

but few of us a blank. In the session to be heard from 1YA at 7.59 p.m.on Monday, March 8, three of the four questions are "tough" ones. Most of us could probably say something about "Can past history assist to-day’s problems?", but how many eniital say why

colours clash, what causes a tune to run in the head, or why there are no women cartoonists? However, we can be sure that difficult though these questions may appear to the average listener, the Brains Trust, which consists of Mary Agnes Hamilton, Bertrand Russell, Lord Elton, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Michael Ayrton, will not be dumbfounded by them. Hamilton Calling FEW months ago the Mobile Unit of the NZBS toured Waikato and Thames Valley centres, recording musical items and tales of early history as told by some of the earliest settlers. At 7.58 p.m. on Thursday, March 11, 1YA will broadcast the first of a series of documentary programmes which were built around these recordings. The Hamilton Programme, Part 1, introduces the story of Hamilton’s development from the old Maori village of Kirikirinoa to a thriving farming centre. The progtamme includes musical interludes by the Civic Orchestra, the Pipe Band, the Hamilton Choir, the Salvation Army Band, and various school and church choirs. At the same time on succeeding weeks 1YA will broadcast the remainder of the Hamilton Programme, and the programmes of other Waikato towns. Musical recordings made by the Mobile Unit will also be used in 1ZB’s Brass Band Parade programme (heard at 8.55 a.m. on Sundays), and in 4YA’s session Music is Where You Find It, which begins at 7.30 p.m. on Monday, March 8. Vivaldi the Ancestor S/a direct offshoot of the concerto grosso, the violin concerto was first composed by Vivaldi and others in the 18th Century, and Bach transformed it from something merely "competently pleasant" into a work truly great. Mozart evolved the classical form, and Beethoven’s single example seems to achieve perfection, with that of Brahms of an almost equal stature. Delius advanced a step by using the solo violin as an integral part of the orchestral texture,

while Sibelius in his D Minor concerto -one of the outstanding works of this century-opposed brilliant solo passages with reticent orchestration. In Vaughan Williams’s Concerto Academic, which is rather in the Vivaldi style (though the idiom is modern), the violin concerto seems to come full circle. Station 2YC’s programme For Violin and Orchestra, which will be heard at 8.0 p.m. on Sunday, March 14, traces briefly the history of the violin concerto, with ample illustration from the above composers, Alexander Nevsky HE film Alexander Nevsky was pro‘duced in 1938 as part of the Soviet’s policy of reviving interest in the Russian past, and the story celebrated the rout of the Teutonic Knights on ,the frozen surface of Lake Peipus in 1242. The musi¢al score for the film was composed by Prokofieff, and later he expanded the music into a cantata in seven parts for solo, chorus and orchestra, and conducted it in Moscow on May 17, 1939. The musical style of Alexander Nevsky is a compromise between the modernism of Prokofieff’s early works, such as his Scythian Suite or Second Symphony, and his new conception of a national Russian style derived from Borodin and Moussorgsky. The work is characterised by its unusually luxurious orchestration, with bells, xylophone, and maracas (a Cuban percussion instrument, originally a gourd containing dried seeds). Alexander Nevsky will be heard from 2YA at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, March 14. Incidentally, the death of Sergei Eisenstein, producer of the film Alexander Nevsky (and of a half-dozen other screen classics) was announced only a few days ago. He was in his fiftieth year,