THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 505, 25 February 1949, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

lrish Concerts 1O doubt is left about the origin and intention of the series of BBC programmes Come Into the Parlour, which will start from 2YA at 828 p.m. on Saturday, March 5. It describes itself as a series of songs, melodies, and dances of Ireland, all of the numbers being made for the Irish and about the Irish, and some of them actually by the Irish themselves. These cheerful musical shows-there are six altogether-come from the BBC’s Belfast studios, and

b they have been recorded for overseas listeners: by the BBC Transcription Service. The regular performers in the parlour are David Curry and his Irish © Rhythms, Eddie Shaw and his band, and the Parlour Singers. In addition, . guest artists are heard in each programme. Learning to Speak NDREW MORRISON’S talks on the New Zealand voice stirred up quite a controversy, and did much to dispel any idea we might have had that we speak English better than the English themselves. Speech begins, of course, the day we are born, and in 3YA’s. Mainly for Women session on Tuesday mornings Nancy Caughley, a speech therapist ‘at the Christchurch Normal School and Training College, talks about how children learn to speak. In her first talk Miss Caughley traced the development of speech almost from. baby’s first cry, and discussed the ways in which parents can help their children’s normal speech development. In a second talk, at 10.5 a.m. on Tuesday, March 1, she will describe how sometimes, despite all precautions, things go wrong with children’s speech-difficulties caused through what she calls "faulty receiving apparatus" (deafness), or "faulty transmission machinery" (difficulty in actually forming and sounding the words). Turbo-Jet AIR COMMODORE SIR FRANK WHITTLE, the man to whom Britain owes its turbo-jet aeroplane, co-operated in the writing of the BBC programme Turbo-Jet, which will be heard from 1YA at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, March 6. It traces the history of the jet engine from the day when the idea first came to young Frank Whittle, a Flight Cadet at the R.A.F. College at Cranwell, to the day in August, 1944, when a squadron of jet-driven Meteors went into action against the flying bombs over England. Since the programme was first broadcast. from the BBC’s Midland Studios, Whittle’s great contribution to aeronautics has been recognised by a grant of £100,000 and a knighthood.

Listening to this transcription, listeners will get some idea of the immense difficulties he had to overcome before his invention was driving the fastest aircraft in the world. Music of Mahler (GN Monday, February 28, at 8.0 p.m. 1YC will begin a seriés, Mahler and his Music, with a performance of Symphony No. 1 in D Major, by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. The premiere of this work, which Mahler conducted himself in Budapest in 1889, was a failure-‘‘the audience being totally unprepared to cope with the disturbing features’ of Mahler’s sensational orchestral idiom." Mahler’s life was, for the most part, one of apparent failures and artistic frustration. Unable to support his family by composing he became an operatic conductor-a job which he did brilliantly and hated doing because it left him little time to compose. He was Artistic Director at Vienna from 1897 to 1907, but even a succession of triumphs and his, by this time, acknowledged genius as a conductor were not proof against political enmity and his own artistic tyranny and extravagance. He was compelled to resign and he left Vienna to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera House. His American career promised to be lucrative enough to give him the economic independence which would have allowed him real leisure to compose. He died before that promise could be fulfilled. Opera from 1YA ‘| Hs week opera-lovers should find their cup more than full. 1YA will serve opera off the ration, with Aida by Verdi (Tuesday, March 1,+at 8.0 pm.); Rigoletto by Verdi (Thursday, March 3, at 8.0 p.m.), and Manon by Massenet (Saturday, March 5, at 8.0 p.m.) Aida is set in ancient Egypt. It is the story of a young soldier (Radames) who loves Aida, the slave of the king’s daughter (Amneris) who also loves Radames. In a passion of jealous rage Amneris has the faithful Radames entombed alive for alleged treason. Aida chooses to die with her lover, and as the curtain falls, Aida dies in Radames’ arms "while Amneris, distraught with ‘grief and remorse, falls senseless upon his tomb," Manon, on her way to a convent, elopes with gq young chevalier (des Grieux) who is on the verge of taking Holy Orders. She later forsakes him for a rich nobleman (De Breitigny) and des Grieux decides to become a monk. Manon, however finds him in his seminary and persuades him to return to Paris with her. To please her he becomes a gambler, successfully, until he is accused of cheating at cards, and they are both arrested. Manon on her way to be deported is rescued by des Grieux and "asks pardon for her unfaithfulness and falls dying into the arms of her lover. Rigoletto is the story of the fulfilment of a father’s curse. Rigoletto, who is Jester to the profligate young Duke of Mantua, is also his aide in arranging illicit amours. Unwittingly he assists in the betrayal of his own daughter (Gilda). In vengeance, Rigoletto

hires an assassin (Sparafucile) and his sister (Maddelena) to murder the Duke. Maddelena, having lured the Duke to his death, falls under his spell and will not have him killed. Sparafucile kills a page in his stead. The page, however, is Gilda come in disguise to save her erstwhile lover. The body is delivered in a sack to Rigoletto, who is on the point of throwing it into the river when he hears the Duke singing. "Amazed, the Jester opens the sack to find his daughter on the point of death. She dies in his arms, and seeing in this the consummation of the curse laid upon him by Count Monterone, the father of one of the Duke’s victims, Rigoletto falls senseless "across his daughter’s dead body." And down comes the curtain.