THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 523, 1 July 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Concert from Tauranga HEN Station 1YZ went on the air last April, it was intended ‘that later its programmes should ‘include broadcasts from Tauranga. At 8.0 p.m. on Monday, July 4, listeners will be able to hear Tauranga onthe air for the first time when a relay from the Tauranga Town Hall of the first half of a public concert by the Tauranga Choral Society will be broadcast. The programme will include Rutland Boughton’s "Piper’s Song," Elgar’s "From the Bavarian Highlands," and "Shepherd’s Song," and several Negro melodies. The choral items will be interspersed with violin and vocal solos. A Henry James Story "| TERE at last then, it, the dear splendid thing, the play, ever so daringly, so wonderfully, is," one might imagine Henry. James saying in his famous Final Manner if he were alive to. introduce the BBC’s adaptation of his story Paste, which will be broadcast from 3YA next week. The adaptors chose Paste because it poses, as might be expected of anything from the pen of the Master, a pretty little problem in morals. Suppose you had found among the effects of a respected female relative a necklace that you assumed to be artificial, but which turned out to be a valuable string of pearls. And suppose further ‘that you can only assume that the more valuable the necklace is, the less immaculate must have been your relative’s past. Would you proclaim the necklace as the real thing or not? Thea Holme, who adapted the story and who also plays the leading part, gives one answer to this problem which may please all those listeners who tune in to 3YA at 9.55 p.m. on Monday, July 4, but which may, on the other hand, according to one’s standard of taste, not. ’ Songs from the Isle of Man HE origin of that strange three-legged sign which, as all Manxmen know, forms the arms of-the Isle of Man, has never been completely . explained. But no Manxman will fail to point out that this small but independent "nation" celebrates its national day on Tuesday, July 5. To mark the occasion IYA will broadcast at 9.30 p.m. a programme of traditional Manx airs, sung by the Auckland Manx Society’s choir under the baton of Thomas Ellison. Most people know of Man only as a little island in the Irish Sea, lying equidistant from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. It is also the home of one of the world’s most ancient elective legislatures (with two chambers, the House of Keys and the Court of Tynwald), and claims never to have been conquered by England. Man is still surprisingly independent, and acts of the British Parliament, for instance, do not apply to it unless specific provision to that effect is contained in them. ; Choir and Organ URING each of three studio recitals of unaccompanied choral music by the Auckland Lyric Harmonists, conducted by Claude Laurie, listeners to 1YA will hear one presentation with Grand Organ accompaniment. These will be recordings, made in the Beresford

Street Congregational Church, with Ronald Dellow at the organ. In each case suitable works have been selected. They are, for the first recital, "How Excellent Thy Name," from Handel’s "Saul"; for the second, "How Lovely are Thy, Dwellings Fair,’ from "Requiem," by Brahms; and finally "Crucifixus," from the Bach "Mass in B Minor," and "God of Mercy," from the "Requiem Mass in C Minor," by Cherubini. Perhaps the most interesting work in the first programme is the five-part "Introit,’ from The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ on the Cross, by Heinrich Schutz. This composer, born almost a century before Bach, is regarded as the precursor of Bach in his Passion music and of Handel in the sacred symphony. His "Introit" is a fine example of the use of an arly form of polyphony to obtain dramatic expression. The Auckland Lyric Harmonists will be heard ffom 1YA at 8.13 p.m. on Wednesday, July 6, and- again on July 13 and 20.

The Greek Theatre {AR have we travelled (some 2,400 years in fact) from the golden tealms of the heyday of Greek drama, and the gap, in spite of such phenomena as Judith Anderson’s Medea and Laurence Olivier’s Oedipus (and Maria Dronke’s Trojan Women) takes some

bridging. However, some of the bridgework will be supplied by the series of programmes being heard from 4YA at the moment, To the Honour of Dionysos. These were written by Dorian Saker, a classics

graduate whose name is well known to readers of The Listener, and they consist of four half-hour features describing the development and organisation of the Greek theatre, illustrated with choruses from the plays. The first pro-gramme-a visit to a Greek theatre in Athens-has already been heard. The remaining three will be heard fortnightly at 9.30 on Friday nights from 4YA, beginning on July 8 —

Men on Camels HE story of Australia’s history is studded with famous names-Abel Tasman, Dampier, and Cook in the early days, and in the later inland exploration, Leichhardt, Sturt, Eyre, ‘Stuart, Burke and Wills, Perhaps the most remarkable story is that of Burke and ‘Wills, who set off from Melbourne for the Gulf of Carpentaria. A £10,000 prize had been offered by the South Australian legislature to the man who should’ first cross the continent from south to north. Burke, Wills, King and Gray started on December 16, 1860, with one horse and six camels, to cross the desert from Cooper’s Creek, In spite of great difficulties they passed the McKinlay Range and reached the tidal waters of the sea, and in February began the return journey, On April. 16, Gray died, but five days later the others had crossed the desert and reached their. ' old depot at Cooper’s Creek. Incredibly enough, the men left in charge there had departed in despair on that very day, and Burke, Wills, and King wandered around in the semi-desert, the

ae. af ° first two eventually dying of starvation, and only King being found alive by a search party in September. The Story of Australia, a series of self-contained dramatic episodes, starts, from 2YA at 3.0 p.m. on Wednesday, July 6, and will continue at the same time each Wednesday and Thursday. Tropical Lure N April, 1936, a small advertisement appeared in the personal column of The Times, London: "Voyage to the South Seas under sail. Schooner leaving August for about a year. Young men wanted to crew. Each contribute £100 towards expenses. Apply Adrian Seligman, Parkside, Wimbledon." That advertisement attracted as strange a ship’s company as ever sailed for the other side of the world in an old 300ton barquentine. In the foc’sle were @ lawyer, German refugee, schoolmaster, engineer, jobbing builder, shipping clerk, draughtsman, cook, marine biologist and botanist, none of whom knew the first thing about sailoring. Aft there were one or two professional seamen, but for a great part of that voyage the crew learned to be sailormen the hard way. All the same, they did it. They got to the South Seas, and the true story of their adventures is told in The Cruise of the Cap Pilar, one of a series of programmes, Good-bye to All This, originally broadcast in the BBC Light Programme. It will be heard from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, July 9. Young Chippie LEWIS GRANT WALLACE, who wrote Young Chippie, a BBC play which will be broadcast from 4YA at 10.10 p.m. on Thursday, July 7, recognises the fact that some things can be ‘desperately important when we are children, nor has he forgotten the childhood belief that if you want anything hard enough you can get it. What young Chippie wanted so badly was a bicycle, but it looked as though the odds were heavily | against his getting one. © The ‘only person who didn’t see it that way was Chippie himself, and thereby hangs this moving little tale, which was originally broadcast in the BBC Home Service. >