THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 462, 30 April 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Save a Child ‘] His week, and for the rest of May~ at least, there will be many broadcast references to New Zealand’s campaign for funds to help the United Nations t6 rehabilitate child victims of war. There will be talks from 2YA at 4.0 p.m. on Monday, May 3, by the Minister of Health (the Hon. Mabel Howard); on May 4 by the Mayoress of Wellington (Mrs. W.,Appleton); May 5 by Amy Kane; May 6 by Mrs. Knox Gilmer; and on May 7, by Isabella Cable. From 4YA listeners will hear appeals at 2.0 p.m. on Monday, May 3, by the Mayoress of Dunedin (Mrs. D. C. Cameron); on May 4, by Lady Sidey (a member of the Dominion Council of the Plunket Society); on May 5 by Mrs, F. G.. Soper. (Provincial Girl Guide Commissioner); on May 6 by Mrs. R. W. S. Botting (president of the Dunedin Y.W.C.A.); and on May 7 by Mrs.L. C. Morrison (president of the Dunedin Centre of the New Zealand Women’s Institute). On Sunday, May 9, at 6.45 p-m., Stations 1YA, 2YH, 2YA, 3YA, 3ZR, and 4YO will broadcast a programme They Want to Know, supporting the appeal. Every evening at 9 o'clock, all main National and Commercial stations will be linked to broadcast the voice of seven-year-old Philip Waldron, of Wellington, who will introduce a two-minutes’ session called United Nations Time. Musical Autobiography F you want to hear an experiment in musical autobiography and _ self-por-trait, listen in to 2YA at 8.0 p.m. next Tuesday. The musician. is, Richard Strauss, and the composition Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). It has six parts: The Hero; His Adversaries (this part, by the way, was once regarded as a savage indictment of musical critics); His Helpmates; His Battlefield (a "frightful and prolonged noise," according to the critic Eric Blom); His Works of Peace (a series of Quotations from Strauss’s own tone poems); and His Renunciation of the World’ and the End of Striving. When this work was figt heard (it was composed in 1898) it was thought a monstrous piece of bad taste for a composer to extol himself as a hero, but it is considered now as being a valuable contribution from Strauss’s most mature period of composition, the years of the great tone-poems. Music by Tchaikovski HE plain man likes Tchaikovski’s works, and most candid musicians not led astray by theories about him and his compositions, will agree with the plain man. His strong emotional expressicns quickly captured the ,ear of audiences in Britain and-the United States and in those countries, as in some others, he was the first Russian composer to become really familiar to the public. A good deal of sentimental nonsense has been written about his pessimism and his constant cry that he was losing his powers and must stop composing. But. his powers went on ripening to the end and to-day his works remain notable for their wide emotional range and therefore wide appeal. Listeners to 4YA on Thursday, May 6, will hear, at 8.15 p.m, his

Serenade in C Major, played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by ‘Sir ‘Adrian Boult. Muzzle Lashings OW that members of the Wavy Navy have, for the most part, got back to their peacetime occupations on the beach, beards are not such a common phenomenon as they were during the war years. The BBC, however, has no inten-

tion of allowing us to forget that one of man’s proudest adornments is a full set of "muzzle lashings," and a special session has been produced under the title of "A Garland of Beards." This programme was first

broadcast in one of the lighter moments of the Third Programme, and the author, Denis Constanduros, describes the session as a collector’s piece. It is produced by Michael Barsley, with music by Roy Douglas, and these three, between them, present an informative and highly entertaining 30 minutes’ listening on the subject. Barsley Has a rather solemn appearance hiding a very pretty wit; listeners to the BBC have been able to appreciate the latter quality in the number of programmes he has written and produced. He has also published some half-dozen humorous books, most of them illustrated by himself. A Garland of Beards will be heard from 4YA on Friday, May 7, at 2.5 p.m. Singing Dubliner "THE late John MacCormack’s singing of Irish melodies made him so completely unassailable as the doyen of modern lyric tenors that people began to get the idea that if an Irishman was a singer he must naturally be a tenor too-and a good one -at that! But the Irishman who sings in the BBC programme My Song For You (which starts from 3YA at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday, May 6) is not a tenor, at least not officially. He classes himself as a light baritone, but he has an extraordinary range that runs from the tenor level well down into the depths. His name is Maurice Keary, and he is a_six-foot-and-upwards Dubliner who was once a window-dresser. He says that he gave up window-dressing for fulltime singing because his family, who are all musical, talked him into it, but he has no reason to regret the change, since he has recently become one of the BBC’s most popular artists. All the songs in this programme were arranged by Alan Paul, of the BBC Variety Department, and the accompaniment is’ by Stanley Black’s dance orchestra. Moth Balls and Lavender . Mest of us (not the hardy types who sneer at winter woollies) are now thinking about raising that £12/19/11, or whatever it comes to, for a new winter overcoat, having the ribs of the old umbrella strengthened, acquiring a pair of galoshes and generally building up a stock of raiment against outside weather and indoor power cuts. But this should be a double operation, The wise man and woman in these days, when clothing

prices are apt to tinge the bank statement with red, sees that the summer togs are preserved from the moths and the silverfish. For whether next summer’s fashions will *continue with the new look or revert to farthingales and pipe-stem trousers, serviceable clothes are always worth laying away among the lavender. If you seek some expert information on how best to stow the apparel you are now temporarily discarding, listen to an A.C.E. talk Putting Away Summer Clothes from 4YA at 10.0 a.m. on Friday, May 7 Lost Township [RE Passing of Crab Village is a true story. When this century began Crab Village. was a contented little community on the Devon Coast37 little cottages, 125 fisher-folk, a tiny main street, an inn and a village shop. To-day all that is left of the village is a forlorn huddle of ruined cottages, their foundations eaten away by the sea. How it came about is told in a feature programme from the BBC. Alan Burgess, who wrote the script, spent a considerable time near the site of the lost village and pieced together an absorbing story from the memories of local inhabitants. The programme was produced by Leonard Cottrell in the West Regional studios of the BBC at Bristol, so listeners to 4YA at 8.0 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, will hear the tale told in the authentic voice of the West Country. Gilbert and Sullivan Serial ' ATES for broadcasting the BBC’s dramatized story of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership have now been fixed by the NZBS. The serial, in six episodes, will start at 2YA-on Friday, May 14, at 7.45 p.m.; 3YA on Saturday, May 29, at 7.45 p.m; 1YA on Monday, June 14, at 7.45 p.m.; and at 4YA on Wednesday, June 30, at 7.30 p.m. Successive episodes will be heard at weekly intervals.