THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 498, 7 January 1949, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

How to Live ()CCASIONALLY (but not, we hope, too often) when flipping idly through the week’s programmes, we fail to notice ‘the odd item of unusual interest. This happened last week with the series of BBC talks called The Art of Living, ‘in which six well-known raconteurs tell listeners how to get the best out of life, The first of these talks was broadcast from 2YA on January 2, but the second of them, by the late James Agate, will be heard this Sunday, January 9, at 3.15 p.m. In this recording Mr. Agate preferred to talk about life from the artists’ angle, since these were the people he knew best. An artist must live for his art, he said,~and later, when talking about other aspects of the artistic life, "I don’t say don’t die of drink, but if you must die of drink, make sure that you do something you will be remembered by beforehand." These remarks are typical of the whole talk, delivered in his usual dry, outspoken style. Country Session from 3YA N order to cater more specifically for farming districts in Canterbury, Station 3YA is preparing to expand its weekly mid-day farm talk into a 20minute country session. Besides talks of an instructional nature The Country

Session will include interviews . with visiting farmers from overseas, reports of agricultural meetings, dog trials, ploughing matches, and so on, reviews of agricultural publications, and answers to enquiries from listeners on farming topics. Interviews recorded by a mobile recording unit which will visit rural centres and sheep stations in the province will also be broadcast from time to time. The first broadcast of The Country Session will be heard from 3YA at 12.20 p.m. on Monday, January 10. . Conservation of Beauty RITAIN’S plans to preserve some of her loveliest areas as National Parks have been made the subject of a BBC talk by Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, writer and broadcaster on country lore. The object of establishing these parks is that people may enjoy them in the knowledge that neither the jerry-builder nor industry can ruin them as many other places have been spoiled. There are 12 areas earmarked for this scheme -the Lake District, the North Wales Mountains, the Peak District, Dartmoor, the Yorkshire Dales, the Pembrokeshire Coast, Exmoor, the South Downs, the Roman Wall, the North Yorkshire moors, the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains, and the Norfolk Broads. This talk will be heard from 1YA at |} 8.1 p.m, on Monday, January 10.

Schola Cantorum Broadcast HE music of the 16th Century composer Palestrina differs from that of his contemporaries chiefly in being far less literary, aiming not so much at an intense expression of words, but the beauty of pure sound, especially in the grouping of voices. Much of'it is based on plainsong themes. One of his Masses, the celebrated Missa Papae Marcelli, was sung by the Schola Cantorum (conducted by Stanley Oliver) in the Wellington Town Hall on December 1 last, and a delayed broadcast of this performance will be heard ‘from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11. The Schola Cantorum was founded by Mr. Oliver in 1936 for the purpose of studying and performing modern and_ lesser-known classical works. Originally it was intended to restrict the membership to 26 voices, but that number has been slightly increased. The constitution of the Schola Cantorum is similar to that of the Fleet Street Choir, London. The business side of the organisation is managed by a committee, with the usual officers, but all musical decisions are vested in the conductor. No salaries are paid and the choir is financially self-sup-porting. Its first appearance was in a studio broadcast in 1936, when Sir Malcolm Sargent was guest conductor, Voices of Freedom ON June 18, 1940, just before the German Occupation, a letter was posted to the BBC from I8ere in France. "Continue your transmissions," it said, "continue your transmissions in French and English in such a way that they may be heard whatever happens." How that letter and others like it were answered is the story told in the programme London Calling Europe, which will be heard from 1YA at 2.0° p.m. on Sunday, January 16. Rarely has a feature programme had such an enthralling background, for the story of the BBC European Service is, in fact, the story of the underground armies of Europe who never gave up the fight against the Nazis and who depended, at first for hope and encouragement and later for operational orders, on the broadcasts from London. Music by Bax EVER having been obliged té earn a livelihood, Sir Arnold Bax, the English composer, has held no official musical appointment. This was singularly fortunate for him, for he is of a retiring disposition, and the kind of man who cannot be imagined-so his friends say-taking part in the conflicts and competitions of the musical world with anything but distaste, though as an amused and slightly ironical onlooker he enjoys them well enough. In the main the story of Bax’s" life is the history of his w@ks. He has written an extraordinary number of compositions for orchestra, and for chorus, «ballets, chamber music, piano solos, works for two pianos, songs, and folk-song arrangements. On Sunday, January 16, at 8.5 p.m., listeners to 2YZ will hear his Overture to a Picaresque Comedy, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Sir Hamilton Harty as conductor.