THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 500, 21 January 1949, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

About Drugs ‘THE average layman’s knowledge of drugs and drug addicts often comes to him in a pretty distorted form from sensational fiction. The BBC feature programme Dzngerous Drugs aims at presenting the facts about the drug habit on a basis of scientific truth. Largely by means of conversations in a hospital between a psychiatrist and a young merried woman who has tried to commit suicide, the author and producer show how the drug habit can grip its victims, the effect it has upon them, and how modern medical science is treating it. The programme was written by Kenneth Alexander and produced by Nesta Pain. It will. be heard from 4YA at‘ 10.0 p.m. this Sunday, January 23. Music in Britain ALTHOUGH the three broadcast talks "" to be given from 1YA and 1YD by Owen Jensen, music tutor to the Auckland W.E.A., provide an interesting, and. at times amusing, account of musical activity in Britain as he saw it during his visit last year, they contain something more than entertaining titbits of news and description. For much of the information and comment are related to musical activity in this country and will provoke the thoughts of those who are interested in its development. Perhaps of particular interest will be his third talk in which he speaks of New Zealand musicians now in England and the reasons they gave why they were unlikely to return here. The talks will be heard at 7.15 p.m. on Mondays, starting on January 24, the first and third from 1YA and the second one from 1YD. At 7.47 p.m. on February 7 Mr. Jensen will begin a series weekly of piano lec-ture-recitals based on the more interesting or more important musical works to be heard in the station’s programmes during the week. A Purcell Song PLUMP young man with the beginnings of a double chin, who lived under Old Rowley, under James II and the House of Orange, and yet died at the age of 36 became, in his short life, a Gentleman of the King’s Musick and played the organ -at the Chapel Royal. He was almost as much the father of English music as Chaucer was of English poetry, and his name was Purcell. Although the Purcell bibliography is large, the amount of positive information about him remains scanty — a strange fact in view of the importance of his public care2r and, of the recognition of his work, not only by his fellowmusicians, but also by the public. He was the author of the Ode for St. Cetilia’s Day-to the words of Dryden -of many of the ceremonial pieces of those times, such as Coronation anthems, of music for plays, of music for taverns, and of one of the first operas in miniature ever heard in England. One of his songs, Hark the Echoing Air, sung by Isobel Baillie, will be heard from 3YZ in the classical music session at 9.36 p.m. on Morday, January 24,

The Proms are Unique "T HE sight of a Promenade audience at the Albert Hall is said to be wonderfully impressive-upwards of 6,000 people in a vast circular hall, the audience rising tier by tier until it almost reaches the roof, and everyone there to hear fine music. Those who go to the topmost gallery-a _ dizzy height--can scarcely see the orchestra

and the artists, while the ‘"promenading" part of the audience looks like a lot of little beads on a red handkerchief. But the music, they say, still sounds superb even away up there in the Albert Hall Alps. When it is remembered that in a Prom season of

49 _- consecutive concerts (Sundays excepted) the Hall is full to capacity on nearly every night, the appeal of good music is obvious. And since the BBC took over the running of the concerts a huge unseen listening public spread all over the world has been edded to the enthusiasiic Londoners who go there every night. Listeners to 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 26, will hear one of a series of recorded Promenade concerts issued by the BBC Transcription Service. The pregramme includes the suite Escales by Jacques Ibert,: and Fantasia on British Sea Songs by Sir Henry Wood himself, the man who did so much to make these concerts a success. You Get It Young "\ HIMSY," somecne has said, "is like whooping-cough-you get it young, or you don’t. get it at all." Which is true enough of most people, but it all depends on what you mean by whimsy-there is the "ten little pink toes under the gooseberry bushes" type; the more robust Alice in Wonderland variety, and then, of course, there is J. M. Barrie. Barrie got it young and never got over it, which was a good thing for us because at its best his fantasy has an echo of universal pathos in it which it takes a very confirmed cynic indeed to resist. Even the super-sceptical Noel Coward confesses that at one time Peter Pan was the play he most wanted to act in, an ambition which he ultimately gratified by playing "Slightly." From 4YA_. on Tuesday, January 25, at 10.0 a.m. George Christie will explain why The Play I Most Want to See is Barrie’s Peter Pan. Tammy on Tour ‘TAMMY TROOT certainly gets aboot. Listeners to 2YZ at 4.30 p.m. on Friday, January 28, will find him on a Polar Expedition. But before that-on Monday, January 24, at 4.30 p.m.-3YA listeners will follow him on a visit to the Burns Country, which is just as it should be, for on Tuesday evening of this week, Scots hither and yond will be busy celebrating the birthday of Robert Burns. Tammy, as listeners to children’s

sessions know by now, is a trout of considerable character. When his inventor, Lavinia Derwent, was still young, she started to write stories about little ani-mals-‘"a lot of twaddle,"’ she called them-and her first story was published when she was 17. She did not confine herself to animal tales. Articles and stories about the Sco‘tish scene appeared es well, but it was the arrival of Tammy Troot that brought her outstanding success. Now she can no longer bring herself to eat trout. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle N many nurseries a set of the Peter Rabbi: books is considered almost as necessary as the table or the toycupboard. The name of their creator, Beatrix Potter, is as wel!-known as the little creatures she invented-Peter Rabbit, Jemina Puddleduck, Jeremy Fisher, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle-but until recently little was known of the authoress herself. Her biography, published a year or so ago, showed that there were two sides to her personality. There was Beatrix Potter, daughter of a_ solid Victorian family, who escaped from the humdrum world of. a rigidly disciplined childhood into the company of the liitle creatures she loved and drew with such charm; and there was Mrs. William Heelis, successful farmer and sheep breeder, and a doughty champion in the movement to keep unspoiled the beauties of the English Lake District. The BBC Programme Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is based on Margaret Lane’s biography, and was named after the hedgehog laundress who, of all the litle animals that she drew so lovingly, was Beatrix Potter’s favourite. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle will be heard from 4YA at 9.31 a.m. on Sunday, January 30.