From National Stations

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 495, 17 December 1948, Page 7

From National Stations

(CHRISTMAS to-day is inseparable from a host of special radio features-carol-singing, the presentation of traditional musical works, and plays-and the main National stations and auxiliaries have planned a wide variety of sessions in recognition of the festival. The main items are detailed in the following summary:

Christmas Eve AUCKLAND CAROL Symphony, by Hely Hutchinson, played by the London Radio Orchestra, will be heard at 7.30 p.m., and at 7.59 p.m. the BBC Theatre Chorus and Orchestra, with Marjorie Thomas (contralto), Elsie Suddaby (soprano), and Trevor Anthony (bass) will present Bethlehem, a choral drama by Rutland Boughton. This is a folkopera, telling the, story of the Nativity. At 9.30 p.m. listeners will hear a relay .of the Ceremony of. Candle-Lighting,

from Myers Park, Auckland. Midnight Mass will be relayed from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. WELLINGTON (CHRISTMAS Carols from Al] Countries, a recorded programme, will be presented by Robert Shaw and his Victor Chorale at 7.30 p.m., Kings of Judea, the first play in a new production of the | Dorothy Sayers’s drama The Man Born to be King (see page 9) will be heard at 8.0 p.m., and subsequently. Carols by a (continued on next page) "a

PROGRAMMES) a4 SS EES am (continued from previous page) Candlelight will be relayed from Newtown Park. Midnight Mass will be relayed from St. Gerard’s Redemptorist Church.

CHRISTCHURCH A SPECIAL programme, The Humour of Christmas, written by Emily Baizeen, will be broadcast at 7.15 p.m. At 8.0 p.m. listeners will hear a programme arranged and sung by Myra Thomson (soprano) with Bessie Pollard (pianist), under the title Welcome Yule in the Songs and Legends of Europe. This will describe how the feast of Yule developed in various Continental countries. At 8.30 p.m. an NZBS production, This Christmas: A Perennial Prob-lem-what people in different walks of life have to say about the .season-will be heard. At 9:30 p.m. a_ choral work Before the Paling of the Stars, by Benjamin Dale, will be presented by the Royal Christchurch Musical Society, conducted by C. Foster Browne, with Gladys Vincent (violinist), At 9.50 p.m, Home Thoughts, a programme of music and verse recalling an early New Zealand Christmas Eve, will be broadcast, and Midnight Mass will be relayed from St. Michael’s Church. DUNEDIN T? Bethlehem, a Christmas carol fantasia, written by Anna Kirkwood, with choruses by the Coventry Singers, directed by George Wilkinson, will be heard from the studio at 10.50 p.m. NAPIER T 10.30 p.m. Hawke’s Bay listeners will_hear Carols by Candlelight, a presentation by the combined choirs of Napier and Hastings, relayed from the Botancial Gaftdens, Napier. INVERCARGILL STATION 4YZ will broadcast at 7.30 p.m. A Christmas Carol, a radio dramatization of Charles Dickens’s story, starring Basil.Rathbone, and at 8.15 p-m. there will be a programme Carols, from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge -a BBC production. Songs of the Season, a studio broadcast with the 4YZ Choristers, will be heard at 11.45 p.m.

Christmas Day

‘NEW type of British programme, Five Wishes tor Christmas, will be heard on Christmas Day from the four main National stations. It is the recorded story of fivé wishes made on a Christmas Eve in London, and «it ends with greetings from the British film industry. Featured speakers will be the film actors John Mills, Jack Warner, Margaret. Lockwood, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne., "Station | 1YA_ will broadcast Five Wishes for Christmas at 2.0 p.m., 2YA at 8.28 p.m., 3YA at 10.30 p.m., and 4YA at 3.0 p.m.

AUCKLAND BBC programme of Christmas songs ~" from the British Isles, I Sing of a Maiden, by Frederick Fuller (baritone) with Daniel Kelly at the piano, will be broadcast at 7.43°p.m., and at 8.23 p.m. the BBC Singers, conducted by Leslie Woodgate, and the London Radio Orchestra under Denis Wright, will be heard in Music for Christmas. WELLINGTON "HE Salvation Army will hold a carol service in the studio at 10.10 am. At 11.0 a.m. Charles Laughton will tell the story of the first Christmas and then recount the adventures of Mr. Pickwick at a later celebration. At 7.30 p.m, a 2YA feature Dick Whittington-Fact or Fable? (a pantomime story and its. historical background) will be. broadcast, and at 9.30 p.m. there will be carols by the Christchurch Cathedral Choir, a Christmas short story, a short talk by a new arrival about Christmas in England, some memories of war-time Christmas by ex-servicemen, and massed cerol singing. At 10.30 p.m. listeners will be invited to have a laugh at a Christmas Party with Arthur Askey. CHRISTCHURCH ‘TEMS with a seasonal flavour will lead off at 10.0 a.m. with Our Christmas Card, by Clarence B. Hall (organist) and Thomas E, West (tenor) in a recorded relay from the Civic Theatre. At 7.30 p.m. there will be the traditional care! service relayed from the Christchutch Cathedral, and at 840 p.m. Charles Laughton’s reading of Mr. Pick. wick’s Christmas. Rutland Boughton’s choral drama Bethlehem will be heard at 9.20 p.m. DUNEDIN STUDIO presentation of a choral story of the Nativity as seen through the eyes of a peasant child in France will be the first featured Christmas item from 4YA, at 10.0 a.m. The feature will include a women’s quartet, with Rita Dickel as accompanist, and Dorothy White, as narrator, At 11,15 a.m, listeners will hear Christmas Morning, a carol-singing by the BBC Singers,

and at 4.4 p.m. a radio dramatization of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. A studio performance of Five Fantasias on Polish Christmas Carols, for voice and piano, by Arnold Bax, will be heard at 3.30 p.m., with Patricia Thorn (mezzosoprano) and Olive Campbell (piano) and at 7.0 p.m. a combined Christmas service from First Church-including 15 minutes of organ music at the conclusion of the service. At 8.15 p.m. there will be a broadcast of Kings of Judea, a Dorothy Sayers’s dramatization from her series The Man Born to be King (see page 9). Seasonal items will also be heard from the auxiliary stations.