THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 488, 29 October 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

; . Ballads from the Studio A NEW choral group known as the " ~ Studio Singers will be heard from 2YA in a series of six recitals starting at. 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 2. The Studio Singers are conducted by Harry Brusey, and their recitals will consist mainly of songs and ballads from the modern period. On November 9 they will sing Armstrong Gibbs’s wellknown Ballad of Gil Morrice, and on succeeding Tuesdays listeners will hear them in vocal compositions by Vaughen Wiltiams, Benjamin Britten, and other com®mporary English composers. Emily Bronte WHOLE literature centres around * "the lives and writings of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Bronte, who must be three. of the most interesting personalities in English literature. The problem that tormented their biographers and critics more than any other was how they had learned to know Passion as they did when their lives were spent almost "entirely at their father’s par-. sonage at Haworth in an England of the most Victorian respectability. Emily, who was the most enigmatical and perhaps the greatest of the three sisters, left little record of her life when she died. She was silent and reserved and left no correspondence of interest, while her single novel, Wuthering Heights, darkens rather than solves the mystery of her spiritual existence. The centenary of Emily Bronte’s death falls this year (on December 19) and at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, November 4, 2YA_ will broadcast a talk on her by Robert H. Neil. Penny for the Guy T’S quite likely that if you were to ask the youngsters who, in masks and burnt-cork make-up, mother’s old dress and father’s gardening trousers, prowl the streets in New Zealand on November 5 what it was all about, few would be able to say more than that it was "Guy Fox" Day. And that, to them, would be sufficient grounds for organising a street collection on behalf of their personal representative, the "guy." Guy Fawkes’ Day becomes less elaborate in its manifestations with each passing year, but as long as it is a paying preposition for juveniles it will survive. Those who are hazy about the historical facts of Guy Fawkes and the abortive conspiracy to blow. up King James I and the Parliament on November 5, 1605, should tune in to 3YA at 8.0 p.m. on Thursday, November 4, when they will hear Gun- , powder Plot, a play by Edmund Barclay, produced by the NZBS. Kniohts in Armour NIGHTS wore armour to battle and men fought with sword and longbow when Henry IV was on the throne of England. Henry’s fight against the rebel earls of Northumberland and Worcester and their armies led by Percy Hotspur forms the background of Simon the Coldheart, which starts from 3YZ at 6.0 p.m. on Wednesday, November 3. The radio serial is adapted from Georgette Heyer’s novel about the adventures of three soldiers who fought for

many years at their king’s side. Simon is the leader of the trio, a cold and relentless soldier; Geoffrey, his lieutenant, is a hot-headed young nobleman; Alan, the third pre-musketeer, is a poet and troubadour. Together they go through

many rousing adventures, and a touch of romance is added when cold-hearted Simon meets Lady Margaret, the Amazon of Belremy (see photograph-on page 21.) The Reader Hands Over [HE final discussion in the BBC series The Reader Takes Over will be broadcast from 2YZ at 2.0 p.m, on Sunday, November 7. It will range widely over the writings of Dorothy L. Sayers, creatcr of Lord Peter Wimsey and author of the remarkable radio play on the life of Christ, The Man Born to be King. To put the point of view of the professional critic there is Dr. B. Ifor Evans, Principal of Queen Mary College in the University of London, and the opinions of the ordinary reader will be presented by Margaret Hetherington, and John Clay, a law student. Manners and Murder [VEN in these days, when manners ~ are not what they were, it would not be unnatural for an impressionable young man to run after a pretty girl who had dropped a glove as she stepped off the bus. But he would hardly expect, first to get a very haughty reception from the young woman, and then find himself deeply involved in a most mysterious murder case. Such things happen in books, on the stage-and in radio, as listeners will find if they tune in to 2YA at 8.28 p.m. on Friday, November 5, for the BBC production The Glove. This is a half-hour thriller by Stuart Rady. It was produced originally in the BBC’s Light Programme and recorded at the time by the BBC Transcription Service. Story of Church Music HOSE Hawke’s Bay listehers who take more than a passing interest in church music should enjoy the series Music for Worship, in which Steuart Wilson, Head of Music at the BBC, introduces the varying forms in which sacred music has been played and sung through the centuries. In the first programme he discusses Plain Chant and the Old Version of the Psalter, and the musical illustrations are provided by the BBC Singers, the Renaissance Singers, the Welbeck Small Orchestra and Maurice Vinden at the organ. The second programme shows

how the musical treatment of the Psalm changed with the adoption of the New Psalter, while others introduce music inspired by the Twenty-third Psalm, Music of Advent, and many rare old carols such as the "Sans Day’ Carol," the "Boar’s Head Carol," the "Laundry Carol," and the "Carol of the Nuns of Chester." Music for Worship starts from 2YZ at 9.15 a.m. on Sunday, November 7. Judgment on Justice \V HEN the BBC broadcast a _ programme called British Justice in its Third Programme, it was so successful that it was repeated in the general Home Service. Now it has been issued by the

BBC Transcription Service. The programme (listeners to 2YA will hear it at 9.32 p.m. on Sunday, November 7) is a dispassionate study of justice which, according ‘to Disraeli, is truth in action. Jennifer Wayne, of the BBC,

brings Justice herself to trial on the. invented charges of injustice and neglect of her duty to the British people. The trial is conducted in accordance with British legal procedure, witnesses for and against the accused are called from various periods of history, and after the judge has summed up, the jury-which consists of the listeners-is invited to consider its verdict. It all shows most vividly how the British system of justice, believed by many to be the best in the world, grew up and how it is discharging its duty to the people to-day.