THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 514, 29 April 1949, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Schubert's "Tragic’’ Symphony [-IGHTEEN-FIFTEEN, the year of ~ Waterloo, was also a year of extraordinary productivity for Franz Schubert. He turned out over 144 songs alone, and to write six, seven, or even eight of them on one day (as on October 15) was’ nothing -unusual for the young composer. As he himself said of this period, "When I finish one I start another.’ But the songs were only a part of his_remarkable output in that year. His Third Symphony in D, and two Masses (respectively in G and B Flat), were followed also about this time by a Salve Regina, a Stabat Mater, an offertory, and a quantity of church music. Early in the following year he composed his Fourth Symphony in C Minor, which is named, without perhaps a wholly convincing reason, the "Tragic" Symphony. Like his other early symphonies it is sometimes considered a piece of juvenilia, for although it contains much that is charming and distinctive, the music is in the main derivative from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. A _ recording of the "Tragic" Symphony by the National Symphony Orchestra of America will be broadcast from 1YC at 9.31 p.m. this Sunday. Tales by Blackwood LGERNON BLACKWOOD, _ the famous novelist and _ short story writer, recently broadcast some of his own stories in the BBC Light Programme, and four of them were recorded by the BBC _ Transcription ‘Service for listeners overseas. His stories have strange and unusual themes, as can be gathered from the titles: "Texas Farm Disappearance," "Pistol Against a Ghost,’ "Japanese Literary Cocktail," and "The Curate and the Stockbroker." Algernon Blackwood has travelled widely, and has not been content to follow one occupation all his life. Among other things, he has farmed in Canada, run a hotel, been on the staff of the New York Sun, and later the New York Times. It was while he was farming in Canada that he met the man who told him about the "Texas Farm Disappearance," the story which opens the series. A radio critic once wrote of him, "Other short stories have surpassed Algernon Blackwood’s, but none have been told with such care, such aplomb, such discernment, or such fastidiousness." Algernon Blackwood Tells a Strange Story starts from 3YA at 7.48 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3. Hegel, Marx, te: A FURTHER group of talks in 1YA’s Winter Course series will start at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, May 5. It consists of three talks on Modern Political Theories by Dr. R. P. Anschutz. The first deals with the theories of "Natural Law and Social Contract," the second, which will be broadcast at the same time the following week, with the "Theory of Utility," and the third with the theories expounded by that group cryptically described as "Hegel, Marx, etc." The talks should be of interest to anyone who wants to know the reasons behind 4

such contemporary events as the Berlin air-lift, why liberalism is slightly passé these days, or why we pay one-and-six-pence in the pound for social security. A Burnt Manuscript "\V HAT they will do with this book, none knows, my Jeannie, lass; but they have not had, for a 200 years any book that came more truly from a man’s very heart; and ‘so let them trample it under foot and hoof as they see best."" When Thomas Carlyle said these words to his wife after finishing his French Revolution, he did

not know that its publication was to mark the turning-point of his career. Not the least of his troubles while writing it occurred after he had finished the first volume. He lent the manuscript to John Stuart Mill, who left it at the house of a Mrs. Taylor, where it was burned accidentally. Carlyle had no copy ‘and few notes, and he had to write it afresh. In his play The Firelighters, Laurence Housman imaginatively reconstructs the incident where Mill calls on the Carlyles to try to explain what has happened to the manuscript, for apparently there was an illiterate Irish maid in the house who was addicted to the use of "firelighters." The Fire-lighters was originally broadcast in the BBC’s Third Programme, and it will be heard from 4YZ at. 10.0 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3. Sir Hubert Parry O celebrate the centenary of the birth of Sir Hubert Parry the BBC has prepared a special concert, which listeners to 4YA’s Classical Hour will hear on Thursday, May 5. In keeping with Parry’s reputation as the most English of English composers the concert opens with his stirring setting of Blake’s Jerusalem, a hymn which has become almost a_ second national anthem. Symphony No, 3, the "English" symphony, is also included, and also several of his finest songs, among

them his setting of Milton’s "Blest Pair of Sirens." Sir Hubert’s long life was a productive one, and though most critics agree that his large musical output is scarcely of a uniformly high standard! his finest compositions have an almost Miltonic grandeur and depth. For the Centenary Concert the BBC Symphony Orchestra under George Stratton has joined forces with the BBC Chorus, and the programme notes were contributed by the composer Gerald Finzi, himself a pupil of Sir Hubert Parry. In Media Res "THE work of the young Australian playwright G. Murray Milne is justly popular with New Zealand audiences because of its originality and the power of its presentation. The latest of his plays to be produced by the NZBS is Accessory Before the Fact which will be heard from 2YZ on Sunday, May 8, at 9.33, " Accessory Before the Fact is that almost-rarity, something new in thrillers. The play begins with the startling statement by the hero, "I am about to commit a murder," and he proceeds to take the audience entirely into his confidence, thus making all his listeners accessories before the fact. Mr, Smith’s intended victim is one Bloodsucker, a wife-beater and an official of the Income Tax Department, the implication being that here, if anywhere, is the victim par excellence. There is a certain amount of hankey-pankey with a firecracker equipped with time-fuse by means of which Mr. Smith intends to establish his alibi, he takes all obvious precautions in regard to fingerprints, but unfortunately Chance and a jammed lift take a hand. The surprising thing about the play is that although the audience is right in the centre of the crime with the murderer the denouement takes both equally by surprise.