THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 455, 12 March 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Continental Soprano RECENT arrival from Switzerland, Gertrud Narev (soprano), will give her first broadcast in New Zealand this Sunday evening, March 14. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Mrs. Narev studied at Dr. Hoch’s conservatory under the coloratura singer Hermine Bosetti and received dramatic training under Dr. Lothar Wallerstein. After gaining diplomas in teaching and dramatic stage work she was engaged as a lyric soprano with the Frankfurt Opera. Later she gave concert recitals in Germany and toured France and Switzerland. For her broadcast, which will be heard from 1YA at 8.25 p.m., she will sing the Air from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Belief in "Spring and The Trout by Schubert, Si Petite Chanson by Gaston Claret, and One Fine Day by Puccini. The Five Alls MANY of the signs outside old English inns are both interesting and amusing, but one referred to in a talk by Cecil Hull to be broadcast from 1YA on Thursday, March 18, would be hard to better. The inn is known as The Five Alls and its sign depicts the leading professions: the ecclesiastic (I pray for all); the lawyer (I plead for all); the farmer (I feed all); and the soldier (I fight for all). The fifth "all" is the Devil (I take all)! As with other talks in this series, "Later Leaves in My Scrapbook," Miss Hull covers a wide variety of topics. She has something more to say about inn signs in this broadcast, but she also refers to Cowper’s unhappy life, Kipling, school impositions and prize-givings, and de Gaulle’s message after the fall of France. The talk is scheduled for 7.15 p.m. Falla Recital MANUEL de FALLA’S only major piano work, Fantasia Baetica, will be played from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Monday, March 15, by Ernest Jenner. Written in 1919 and dedicated to Artur Rubinstein, Fantasia Baetica was, with its use of modal harmonies and cleverly imitated guitar effects, Falla’s last composition in his Andalusian manner, It represents, to quote J. B. Trend, "the furthest he went in adapting the harmonic peculiarities of the guitar to the modern piano." Although Falla’s musicel style owes much to the modern French school-he has often been compared with Ravel-his work has a tang and bite about it that is characteristically Spanish. Fantasia Baetica, though not his most popular work, is a highly colourful composition, and one of the most vitally rhythmical works of this ‘century. Among the Sand-Dunes HEN P. C. Wren wrote Beau Geste he started a whole new school of romantic fiction based on life in the French Foreign Legion. Gallant ne’er-do-wells wiped’ out the past as they fought off hordes of Tuaregs from imaginary forts all over North Africa-but none of these stories ever took such a grip of the public imagination as Wren’s original. Beau Geste was a best-seller in the

bookshops, and it packed theatres and cinemas in its stage and film versions. Now listeners will be able to hear it in radio form, specially adapted for the BBC by Lester Powell as a serial in 10 half-hour episodes, and produced by Martyn C, Webster, who is a,specialist in putting

thrillers on the air. (He is producer, among other shows, of the popular Paul Temple serials.) Beau Geste himself is played by Barry Morse, who is supported by a strong castyfrom the BBC Drama Repertory Company. Beau Geste will. begin at Station 2YD at 9.0 p.m. on Tuesday, March 16, and be heard thereafter at the same time on Tuesdays. Visitor From Australia LTHOUGH it is some time since Lilian Quinn broadcast from Auckland, her name will strike a responsive chord in the memory of listeners who used to tune into 1YA a dozen or more years .ago, for at that time she was studio accompanist. During-the intervening years she has toured with Lady Forbes-Robertson’s company as a soprano soloist in "Smilin’ Thru’," and with the Carter the Great Company, for which she conducted the orchestra; she has been an entertainer on ships trave‘ling between Australia and the East and also around the Australian coast; she has taught music in the New South Wales country town of Tamworth and there also during the war ran, a jazz band for soldiers; and for the last five\ and@a-half years she has been in Sydney giving broadcasts and public concerts. Earlier, when she was with the shipping company, she also broadcast from other Australian ports at which her ship called and while on the Eastern run she gave recitals from the Manila and Hongkong stations. At present on a brief visit to New Zealand, Miss Quinn was guest artist in 1ZB’s Radio Theatre session on Sunday, March 7. On Tuesday, March 16, at 7.58 p.m. she will give a piano recital from 1YA and the following Tuesday she will broadcast from the same station as a vocalist. How Hitler Died AT 8.0 p.m. on Friday, March 19, 2YA will broadcast The Last Days of Hitler, based on H. R. Trevor-Roper’s book containing the results of his investigations into the murky twilight of the Nazi regime. The adaptation of this BBC feature is by Terence Tiller, and the programme has been produced by Laurence Gilliam. The BBC found no need to dress up this programme with dramatic effects, for the unvarnished facts make drama enough. What listeners will hear will be a dispassionate

review of the Third Reich in dissolution, as described by the Germans themselves -from high Nazi functionaries to people like Hitler’s personal chauffeur who was with him in. the Chancellery till the end-all the facts being taken from official records and statements of prisoners. If anyone still has doubts about Hitler’s fate, this programme, says the BBC, should help to dispel them. Trevor-Roper, whose book is the standard British work on the subject of Hitler’s death, is now back as a lecturer in history at Oxford. Terence Tiller belongs to’ the BBC’s Features Department. He is a poet and was formerly a lecturer in ‘history at Cambridge. Shippe Swallower IX miles from the Kentish coast, just north of Dover, lie the Goodw‘n Sands, which for nearly a thousand years have been one of Britain’s greatest ‘fmenaces to shipping. Countless ships ‘have foundered in their sucking sands, which hold, according to legend, the bodies of thousands of seamen and cargoes of gold, silver and jewels. An

ancient chronicler once called the formation a "mighty gulf and shippe swallower," yet it is harmless enough to look at jon a calm day-a ten-mile stretch of sand that a man can cycle on with safety. The Goodwin Sands were once a fertile island belonging to Earl Godwine, a friend of Edward the Confessor, and became submerged in a storm in 1099, Attempts to erect a lighthouse there have failed, and despite lightships and _ bell-buoys, frequent wrecks still occur there to-day. The BBC programme The Goodwin Sands, which tells their story, will be heard from 1YA at 9.58 p.m. on Wednesday, March 17.