Easter Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 511, 8 April 1949, Page 25

Easter Programmes

MARTIN SHAW’S Lenten oratorio The Redeemer, which was given its first New Zealand performance at Wellington in 1946 by H. Temple White and the Wesley Church Choir, will be broadcast \again this year by 2YA, starting at 2.45 p.m, this Sunday, April 10. It will be presented by the same choir and the same conductor, and relayed from the Wesley Church. The text, which is in three parts, was compiled by Joan Cobbold from the Bible, and from the poetry of George Herbert, Francis Quarles, Christina Rosseti, and other writers. The first part deals with the Incarnation and the conflict of good and evil, the second with the Agony and Betrayal, and the last with the Crucifixion. The music was described in the Quarterly Review of the Royal Sct=ol of English Music as achieving "emocon without sentimentality, excitement without vulgarity, and a dramatic s@pse which never descends to melodrama." The Musical Times said, "The music itself is strongly inspired and of a rare quality, Shaw has done nothing finer than this, for the work is a masterpiece of its kind." Shaw. himself has been active for many years in movements for the reform of English church music, and in 1921 published a book on this subject called The Principles of English Church Music Composition. In an attempt to revive English opera he established the Purcell Operatic Society in 1900, and himself wrote an opera, Mr. Pepys. He is also known as the editor of The English Carol Book, Songs of Britain, and (with his brother Geoffrey T. Shaw) The Motherland Song Book: From Christchurch Cathedral Amongst other Easter programmes will be a presentation by the Christchurch Cathedral Choir of Bach’s St, Matthew Passion. The work will be relayed. from the Christchurch Cathedral by 3YA at 7. 30 p.m. on Good Friday (April 15), the organist and choirmaster being C. Foster Browne. The St. Matthew Passion will also be’ heard in recorded versions from several stations. From 2YZ it will be heard at 2 p.m. on Good Friday, with Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), the Bach Choir, and the Jacques Orchestra. These recordings will also be broadcast from 4YA, at 3.30 p.m. on Good Friday. Other broadcasts of Passion music include a half-

hour of Bach Passion music from 2XN at 7.32 p.m. on Good Friday, and Passion music from Handel’s Messiah from 2YA at 4.30 p.m. on Good Friday. The Passion-tide Chorale Preludes of Bach) will be heard from 3YA at 3 p.m. on Good Friday, in a presentation contrasting the original chorales with the corresponding arrangements for organ. The chorales will be sung by Margaret Ward (soprano), Vera Martin (contralto), Trevor Ritchie (tenor), and Winston Sharp (baritone), the organ preludes will be played by Clarence B. Hall, and the whole presentation will be relayed from the Civic Theatre. Holst’s "Hymn of Jesus" Station 2XN will present at 8.26 p.m. on Good Friday, Gustav Holst’s mystical work, The Hymn of Jesus, a setting.of the composer’s own translation of words from the apocryphal Acts of St. John. A special recorded Holy Week programme, written and narrated by the Ven. Archdeacon EB. A. Northash of Sydney and called From Stonehenge to Calvary, will _be broadcast from 2YZ at 7.30 p.m. on Good Friday. The BBC programme, We Built a Church, which describes (through the voices of the architects, builders, masons and carpenters) the pride, romance and satisfaction that craftsmen find in a piece of work well done, will be broadcast from 3YA at 2.15 p.m. on Good Friday, and at 9.30 p.m. on the same day Helmut Rex will present from 4YA a programme of readings for Good Friday. At 3.0 p.m. on Good Friday 2¥A will relay from St. Gerard’s, The Stations of the Cross. Besides the usual church services on Easter Sunday, 4YA will present a programme of Easter Carols at 4.30 p.m., and Stuart Perry’s Passion Play with music, Forgotten Sacrifice, as produced by the NZBS, will be heard from 3YA at 9.22 pm. It is a dramatisation of the events leading up to the Crucifixion, and follows as closely as possible the four Gospels. John Gundry’s play Night Winds Telling will be heard from 4YA at 8.20 P.m. on Good Friday. Station 2ZA will present at 6 p.m. on Good Friday, a programme called Easter in Other Climes, and 3ZB will broadcast at 4 p.m. on the same day the BBC programme King of Sorrows (one of the Dorothy Sayers series The Man Born to Be King), which retells the story of the Crucifixion.