THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 529, 12 August 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

Birthday Greetings URPRISINGLY little is known to the general public about the life and music of John Ireland, who is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished of living English composers. At 9.0 p.m. this Saturday, August 13, 2YC will broadcast a 60-minute programme to celebrate his 70th birthday. A representative selection of his orchestral, choral, piano, and film music will be played, with biographical information and a short appraisal of his contribution to English music. His best-known work is probably the song "Sea Fever," a setting of the Masefield poem, although filmgoers may remember him for his background music in The Overlanders. But his larger compositions are little known. The piano concerto of 1930 is a work of uncommon interest, and shows him experimenting with the instrumental and rhythmic sources of jazz, while his choral work These Things Shall Be was recently broadcast here from BBC recordings, Extracts from both of these will be heard in Saturday’s birthday programme. A Worthy Gentleman "[N faith, he is a worthy gentleman . «+ Valiant as a lion," wrote Shakespeare of Owen Glendower, anglicising the name of the national hero whom the Welsh honour as Owain Glyndwr. And it is a fact that though many books ‘have been written about Glendower, and many Welshmen have been eloquent and learned on his_ behalf, Shakespeare’s picture is still the one that lives as the picture of the man. Where, then, is the real truth about him to be found? In a programme, originally broadcast from the Welsh studios of the BBC and recorded at the time by the BBC Transcription Service, Robert Gwyn tries to find the answer. He sets up an imaginary commission to interview witnesses and sift facts. Most of the witnesses lived in Glendower’s day, and they include Owen Glendower himself, Owen Glendower, produced by P, H, Burton, and with players from the Welsh Region will be heard from 3YA at 8.25 p.m. on Monday, August 15. The Roxburgh Project 15-MINUTE documentary programme surveying the investigational work being done for the Roxburgh hydro-electric project in Otago will be broadcast from 4YA at 7.42 p.m. on Wednesday, August 17, NZBS men visited the dam site with a tape. recorder and interviewed engineers working on the project. Amongst other things, they describe the work of tunnelling, drilling, and the sinking of a shaft 90 feet below the river to test ‘for faults in the rock. The projected dam will be 1,000 feet long on the crest, with a maximum height of 200 feet. It will be a concrete dam of the gravity type, the most massive yet attempted in New Zealand. At its full capacity of 320,000 kilowatts Roxburgh would double the present power supply of the South Island. Greatest Novelist? A CRITICAL assessment of Sir Walter Scott, by William Power, will be heard in a BBC recording from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, August 19, The

programme was originally broadcast three years ago to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the birth of Scott. Power says that the world acclaims. Walter Scott as the greatest novelist the Eng-lish-speaking part of it has produced, but in‘ recent times, like many other great writers of the past, he has been subject to drastic revaluation. Power maintains, however, that in Scott’s case, this revaluation has been overdone. More attention has been paid to the spots on the sun than to the sun itself. This programme will give listeners an opportunity to recapture some of the grandeur of Scott’s writings as they are read in the voices of his fellow-country-men. Edinburgh Festival EW people interested in the arts and with any Scots blood in them will have forgotten that Sunday, August 21, marks the start of the International Festival of Music and Drama at Auld Reekie (Edinburgh to the less fortunate) for the third successive year. For the benefit of New Zealanders, Station ’

2YA has arranged a programme for 9.32 p.m. on August 21, called A Year Ago To-day, which will consist of a review | of the 1948 Festival and an outline of the 1949 programme, This year orchestras taking part will include the Royal Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham, and the Berlin Philharmonic under John Barbirolli. There will be two world prémiéres of works by famous authors-T. §S, Eliot’s comedy The Cocktail Party, and the play Coast of Illyria, by Dorothy Parker and Ross Evans. The Dusseldorf Theatre, with Gustaf Grundgens, will present Goethe’s Faust in German on the occasion of the bi-centenary of Goethe’s birth, There will also be Les Ballets des Champs Elysées, of Paris, the Glasgow Orpheus Choir, and the Glyndebourne Opera. (For news of a music festival nearer home, see page 9.) Life and Death of Sir Thomas More JN his Lives of the Lord Chancellors Lord Campbell described Sir Thomas More as "one whose character, both

public and private, comes as near to perfection as nature will permit." A contemporary called him "a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning." Henry VIII raised More high in favour at Court, but finally sent him to the

block because his integrity’ of character would not allow him to forsake his principles at the behest of an earthly monarch. In a dramatized story by Olivia Manning, listeners to 1YA at 2.0 pim. on Sunday, August 21, will be able to follow Sir Thomas More through the Court of Henry VIII to the fateful end brought about by his sincerity and honesty. It was produced in the BBC Home Service by a young American producer, Joel O’Brien, with Andrew Osbourne as More and Howard Marion Crawford as Henry VII.’ Unredeemed Pledges N a talk on the Orkneys in the BBC series Islands of -Britain, A. P. Lee, who has his roots in the islands, points out that less than 500 -years ago they were not islands of Britain at all. In the 15th Century the Orkneys belonged to Norway and in 1472 the King of Norway, falling on hard times, could not provide a dawry for his daughter on her betrothal to the King of Scots, So he’ pledged the islands of Orkney and Shetland as security, and the pledge was never redeemed. To-day one of the outstanding features of these islands away to the north of Scotland is the up-to-date quality of the farming that is carried on there. A. P. Lee is Features Producer at the BBC Glasgow studios, having gone to the Corporation from journalism. He apparently believes in getting about, for during’ his university vacations he worked as beater on a grouse moor, assistant purser on a Clyde steamer, and attendant on Pullman restaurant cars. His talk on the Orkneys will be heard from 4YA on Sunday, August 21, at 2.1 p.m,