THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 471, 2 July 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

: ' |B | | Sonata Beethoven Programmes looms largely in the programmes this week. There will be at least 12 presentations from his works, including his opera Fidelio, which will be "broadcast for the first time in New Zealand from 2YA on Sunday, July 11, at 8.5 p.m. At 2.0 p.m. the same day listeners will hear the Symphony No. 8 in F Major. On Monday, July 5, at 2.16 p.m., 2YA will present the Andante Favori in F, Trio in D, and "Hallelujah" (Mount of Olives) and on Tuesday, July 6, at 9.30 p.m., Symphony No. 1 in C Major. Then on Wednesday, July 7, there will be a broadcast in | 4YA’s classical hour at 3.30 p.m. of Symphony No. 4 in B Flat Major and A Major.f On Friday, July 9, at 740 p.m., 1YA will present the Leonora Overture No. 2, and at 8.14 p.m., Symphony Nod. 6 in F Major. At | 8.0 p.m. on Saturday, July 10, Station (2YC will présent the overture to Egmont, the Ninth Symphony in D Minor, and the "Emperor" Concerto, Bless the Bride FOR the greater part of 1947 Londoners packed the Adephi Theatre to see Sir Charles Cochran’s production Bless the Bride, and they looked like doing so until’ well into 1948. This gay mapeice show, set in the year 1870, , was written in A. P. Herbert’s happiest manner, and perfectly wedded to Vivian Ellis’s music. * The cast is headed by Georges Guetary, a young Frenchman whom Cochran brought specially to London from Paris, and. who made an immediate personal success. This radio version, broadcast by the BBC’ with the original cast, was.a feat of condensation by Vernon Harris, who adapted and produced it. The stage show runs for three hours, and Harris had to fit it into an hour on the air. However, he is an adept at this sort of thing (he did the same for such favourites as Bitter Sweet and Lilac Domino) and he .brought it off without having to drop any of the main musical items. Bless the~ Bride will be heard from 2YA at,7.30 p.m. on Saturday, July 10, and from 1YA at 9.58 p-m. on Sunday, July 11. Navy Mixture Melodies NAVY Mixture Melodies, the latest BBC musical show, features Benny Lee as vocalist (see page 21) with the Song Pedlars and Gaby Roger’s Serenaders. Benny Lee has a big following among listeners to the BBC. He started singing while he was still at school, and by the time he was 10 he had done a lot of cabaret work. At 14 he started work as a tailor, but after a year of it he joined a song-and-dance troupe at 15, shillings a week, and followed that up by working successively as office-boy, door-to-door canvasser, and fairground barker. In his spare time he sang with , local bands, and one night when he was singing in a small country town, he got a wire from trumpet-player | Johnny

Claes to come and join his band in London. Since then he has broadcast with most of the leading bands and has appeared on his own account in & good many radio shows. Navy Mixture Melodies starts from 3YA at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday, July 8, and from 4YA at 10.0 P-m. on the same day. He Married his Housekeeper HERE'S a slice of real English (West Country) humour in The Banns of Marriage, by Charles Lee. The play was originally broadcast from the BBC’s West of England studios at Bristol, and recorded at the time by the BBC Transcription Service. The author keeps his listeners in a pleasant state of amused interest over farmer Hobb’s apparently foolish reason for marrying his housekeeper, but as Mr. Hobb himself says, "Where'd creation be if everybody behaved sensible all the while?" The Banns of Marriage will be heard from 1YA at 10.32 p.m. on Friday, July 9. Man the Destroyer NDER the title of The Anthropologist on Contemporary Problems several distinguished anthropologists spoke recently to listeners in the BBC’s Third Programme, and their talks were recorded for audiences outside Britain by the BBC Transcription Service. In the first of these talks (to be’ hearg from 4YA at 9.30 p.m. on Monday, July 5) Sir John Myres takes "Devastation" as.. his subject. He discusses the way in which mankind throughout history has misused natural resources through a failure to understand their character and nature. Sir John has made great contribfitions to the knowledge of his subject. He has. lectured on Classical Archaeology at Oxford and on Ancient Geography at Liverpool, ‘and for nearly 20 years he was Wykeham Professor of

Ancient’ History at Oxford. He has made a close study of the ‘Mediterranean area, travelling in Greece, Crete, and Asia Minor, and carrying out excavations in Cyprus. In 1894 he reorganised the. Government Museum there. Moura Lympany HE first of several studio broadcasts by the English pianist Moura Lympany ‘will be heard from 1YA at 8.10 p.m. on Sunday, July 11, when she will play a programme of Debussy selections. The dates of her succeeding broadcasts’ are as follows: 1YA, Wednesday, August 18, Friday, August 20, and Sunday, August 22; 2YA, Sunday, July 18, Friday, July 23, Thursday, August 12, and Friday, August 13; 3YA, Friday, August

6 (relay of second half of public concert); 4YA, Thursday, July 29, and Saturday, July 31; 4YZ, Tuesday, August 3. An Irish Classic M. SYNGE’S one-act drama Riders ~" to the Sea is a classic of the Irish Theatre movement which came to such vigotous life under W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Douglas Hyde, and Synge himself in the early years of the century. The play was first performed in 1904 shortly before Synge became a director of the newly-opened Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In it he uses with great success the richly imaginative Anglo-Irish dialect that he elaborated, partly from his own notebooks and partly from the writings of other members of the group./ This radio version of the play was broadcast from the Belfast studios of the BBC, and the recording made at that time will be heard from 3YA at 9.45 p.m. on Sunday, July 11. Romantic Isle ONG, long ago, Finn MacCool, an ~ Trish giant, hurled a clod of earth across the Irish Sea at a Scottish giant. He missed, the clod fell into the sea and became the Isle of Man. Sceptics may doubt this story, but it is in keeping with the romance and rich tradition of this small territory which boasts the second oldest parliament in the world. Next week on the Manx National Day, Monday, July 5,. this parliament will meet in the open, and in accordance with a 1000-year-old custom, Manxmen will assemble to hear read the laws it has passed. Manxmen in exile will be thinking. of home, and to mark the day 1ZM on July 5 will broadcast at 9.0 p-m. a programme presented by the Auckland Manx Society. This will consist of five items by the society’s choir, with introductory remarks written by the president of the society, R. Gatfield, and spoken by Mrs. Gatfield.