THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 495, 17 December 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Holiday Sports N cricket, racing, tennis and’ trotting there will be sporting events of ‘national interest during the holiday period between Christmas Day and "Saturday, January 8, and all will be covered in some degree by the NZBS. Plunket Shield cricket matches, Wellington against Auckland at Wellington, and Otago against Canterbury at Christchurch, will be played on Christmas Day and the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the New Year matches will be Wellington versus Canterbury at Wellington, and Otago versus Auckland at Auckland. The New Zealand tennis championships will start at Wellington on January 8, and will be covered by commentaries from 2YA. Of the racing events the most important will be the Auckland Cup on Boxing Day, for the richest stake of the New Zealand turf. All main stations will be linked for a description of this race at 2.0 p.m., and for the Auckland Trot_ting Cup on Tuesday, December 28, pe 1.0 p.m. approximately. During the | holidays racing and trotting commentaries will be given from stations at Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, _ Napier, Greymouth and Invercargill, On Monday, December 27, New Year’s Day, and January 3, 2YA will conduct a psien round-up of cricket, racing and trotting. For Young People "HE next programme in the BBC’s British Concert Hall series from 3YZ will include Benjamin Britten’s extraordinary tour-de-force The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It was composed for a film produced by the Ministry of Information to make plain the symphony orchestra to the eyes and ears of young people. Britten was invited to write the special sound-track, and, taking a very simple eight-bar theme of Purcell, he composed this brilliant work in which all the instruments, alone and together, show their special functions. When the film was first exhibited it was not expected that the music would stand alone and prove the success that it has since become. The other work in the 3YZ programme is the Sibelius First Symphony.. The orchestra is the BBC Symphony and Sir Malcolm Sargent. is conductor and commentator. | T his programme will be broadcast by 3YZ at 9.30 p.m. on Monday, Decemhes20;5 More About "KM." A NOTHER talk about Katherine will be broadcast from 2YA at 10.25 a.m. on Tuesday, December 21. The script is by Rewiti Mason, and is written mainly for women listeners. Miss Mason tells at first how "K.M." as she became known to many friends, left New Zealand when she was 20 to become a writer. She describes her early experiences in England (her father allowed her £100 a year), her marriage with John Middleton Murry, and the way her brother’s death caused her to turn’ ‘to her childhood as the source of purest ‘inspiration. A discussion of some of the stories is followed by a few words on

her style and technique (called a "technique of omission"), and the talk ends with a description of her last years and death (in January, 1923), at the age of 34. Shopping Psychology "| HERE once was a time when the customers were always right, whatever their taste in frocks or hats, shirts or socks might have been. Then came the war, which made experienced counterhands as scarce as smiles on income-tax day, and introduced a good many consumers to the RQMS-who regarded all

customers as wrong anyway. With the easing off of austerity, and the disappearance to some extent of buyers’ queues, it appeared that the good old days were coming back, but apparently they aren’t here yet-or at least that who is right is still a matter for argument. Listeners will hear some interesting sidelights on present-day shopping psychology from 2YA.if they tune in at 8.20 p.m. on Monday, December 20, to a debate between a housewife, a grocer, and a drapery assistant. The sub-ject-Is the Customer Always Right? Those Irish Play Boys RELAND, according to Hollywood, has supplied the U.S.A. with all of its cops, most of_its clergy, and a fair percentage of its silver-haired mothers. America, possibly in gratitude, has produced and exported a great deal of IrishAmerican corn, and some day, when they have time, the Irish are going to realise they’ve been wronged again and resent it. .But James Crawford in his talks on The Irish Theatre (4YA, Friday, December 17, and Friday, December 24, at 10.0 a.m.), has really "done right by Ould Erin. He tells us of th> theatre which expresses the real Ireland, which produced Yeats and Synge and Sean O’Casey, and actors of such patriotism and artistic integrity that they "have been known to turn down remunerative screen offers, for the reason that the parts were rather too ‘stage Irish.’" Battle of the Sexes A N observer (probable male) at a recent feminist congress noted that

the amazons seemed to be having difficulty in finding something to b2 militant about. He interpreted this as a sign that women are beginning to realise that they have got just about as much freedom as they are biologically capable

of using. A few reactionaries, he remarked, took the opportunity to get on with some knitting. But let no one be-deceived by the title of Amabel Wil-liams-Ellis’s talk "Is Freedom Good For Us?" in the series The Art of Being a Woman (2YZ, Tuesdey, December 21, at 10.0 a.m.). With the advent of the Suffragettes, the Battle of the Sexes lost most of its subtlety and all of its ‘charm. We predict that this apparent retreat merely indicates that the gentle sex is taking the battle back on to its own ground. An Historic Concert SEPTEMBER 29, 1946, was a great "day for the BBC, for it marked the first broadcast made by the Third Pro-gramme-an important step forward in radio’s use as an instrument of culture. Broadcasting started at 60 p.m. with a not-so-serious feature, How to Listen. It was followed by some harpsichord music and a talk by FieldMarshal Smuts, and then came the first recital of orchestral and choral music. Recordings of this historic broadcast (in two parts) arrived here recently, and the first part will be heard from 3YA at 3.0 pm. on Wednesday, December 22. It opéns with Benjamin Britten’s Festival Overture (specially composed for the occasion), played by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, followed by Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, and Purcell’s cantata Come Ye Sons of Art, with the soprano part sung by Isobel Baillie. The second part includes Vaughan Williams’s Serenede to Music (Isobel Baillie and the BBC Chorus), Bliss’s Music for Strings (conducted by the composer), and Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens.