THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 536, 30 September 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

Prelude to War ECENTLY the BBC completed a series of important new radio documentaries on the early phases of the Second World War and the events leading up to it. The authors have had accéss to sources of information not hitherto available, and they present in these programmes the most complete and authentic radie record of that critical period. of history that has yet been made. Listeners to 2YA this Sunday, October 2, at 9.32 p.m., will hear Prelude to War. "In this programme Ter-

'ence Tiller, working in collaboration with Professor L. B. Namier, reviews in detail the diplomatic exchanges and developments between the Munich Crisis gf September, 1938, and the outbreak of hostilities . tn Santamber. 1939.

--_- 2.) Ss As in previous BBC documentaries of | this typé, the facts as revealed in official documents are left to speak for themselves and no attempt at dramatisation has been made. In cases where it is considered désirable to put a statement into the mouth of its originator this is done by using an appropriate type of voice rather than by direct impersonation. Terence Tiller, himSelf an historian, wrote the script, basing it on infermation collected by Professor Namier, who is Professor of Modern History inl the University of Manchester. A leading authority on his subject, Professor Namier has written a number of books on European history. Brahms v. Beethoven RAHMS'’S inferiority to Beethoven is not a matter of technique, said a recent biographer, Peter , Latham, but rather & question of temperament and character. "Brahms never reaches the highest summits of all, because in the last resort he believes neither in God nor himself. Lacking faith, he lacks | confidence.:. . . He was an apostle of the middle way. His music lacks glitter, but glitter is no guarantee of solid worth. Cut beneath the sober surface of Brahms and you find true metal all through." Brahms has in fact.come to be accepted as one of the great purists, the creator of works chaste, noble, and profound. As a symphonist he is ranged second only to Beethoven himself, and his songs often show a symphonist’s breadth and instinct for proportion. He was a‘ great composer of choral and chamber music, | but had ‘no taste for opera. The first of a series of programmes called The Music of Brahms will be heard from 4YZ at 2.15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5. The works to be played are the Symphony No, 1, and the choral prelude "Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming," from Op. 122. "OQ My Blacke Soule!" [IN setting to music the nine poems he chose from John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, Benjamin Britten had a much harder task than in the Seven Songets of Michelangelo. The two song-cycles together stand for sacted and profane love, but Donne’s divine aspirations, i coupled with a deep sense of sin and

the terrors of death, do not, according to The Gramophone’s music critic, lend themselves to lyrical treatment as well as Michelangelo’s temporal longings did. Most of the settings are declamatory, and the summons of the first song, "O My Blacke Soule," is reiterated unceasingly in the piano part. The second song, "Batter My Heart," is swiftly and superbly dramatic, the third is quiet and deeply moving, and the fourth is a test of virtuosity in both singer and piano«. In the last song, "Death Be Not Proud," Britten rises to majestic heights, and the final page is on&é of his most splendid pieces of writing. The songs are in effect a religious meditation, and will give most satisfaction to those who read the poems thoughtfully beforehand, Recordings of. The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, which comprise Opus 35, with Peter Pears (tenor) and Benjamin Britten (piano) will be heard from 2YA at 8.10 p.m. on Thursday, October 6, Pears is said rarely to have sung better than in these songs. Music From Wales [HE Eisteddfod, or national bardic congress of Wales, is an institution peculiar to the country. It seeks to encourage "bardism" and the general lit- erature of the Welsh, to maintain the Welsh language, and to foster and cultivate a patriotic spirit. among the people. The first Eisteddfod of which any account seems to have been handed down was one held on the "banks of the Conway in the 6th Century, under the auspices of Maelgwn Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, but things didn’t get properly under way until the 12th Century, when one of Maelgwn’s successors, the Irish born Griffith ap Cynan, imported large numbers of Irish musicians who did much to improve the strain of Welsh music. The BBC has now produced a programme called A Land of Singers, in which Wyn Griffith gives a vivid picture cf Wales and of a people to whom singing comes as naturally as drawing breath. It ‘contains songs and choruses by tsome of the outstanding competitors’ in the Eisteddfod, by men’s choirs, women’s choirs, and children’s choirs, and some music: peculiar to Wales-‘Canu Pennil-lion"-a special form of singing to the harp, The choirs include the famous Morriston Male Voice Choir. A Land of Singers, which occupies half an hour, will be heard from™1YA on Friday, Oc-' tober 7, look you, at 9.30 p.m. New Series of Plays © © S a film Nothing But the Truth scored a considerable success when it was shown in New Zealand back in 1942. It featured Bob Hope as an illadvised character who vows to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for 24 hours, and gets into all sorts of awkward situations; as a result. Nothing But the Truth yan now be heard as a radio play. It is one of a new series of 60-minute productions starting from 3YC at.8.0 p.m. on Friday, October 7. These plays were produced in Australia, and ,other titles in the series are Fair and Warmer (the first to be heard), Get Rich Quick Wallingford, Smilin’ Through, The Sign on the Door, The Green Goddess, The Rat, Eyes of Youth, and Leah Kleschna. The

series will of course be heard later from other National stations. Tribute to Tommy N the evening of January 13, 1949, at the time when TMA was to have been broadcast, BBC listeners heard instead a.tribute to Tommy Handley, whose funeral had taken place earlier that day. The broadcast came from the studig which had been the home of the first ITMA nearly ten years earlier, It opened with a tribute to Tommy Handley by the Director-General of the BBC, Sir William Haley, and was made up of memories and melodies of "JTMA linked. together with a commentary by John Snagge, the BBC’s Head of Programme Operations. .Tommy’s friends and colleagues in the ITMA cast were in the studio and at the-close of the broadcast they drank a toast to ITMA and the man who had made it one of Ahe best known &nd best loved of radio shows. The Tommy Handley BBC Memorial Programme will be broadcast from 3YA at 7.55 p.m. on Saturday, October 8. From Screen to Radio ~ AN innovation in film making that has apparently proved popular with picturegoers in America and elsewhere appears in the British film Quartet. The producers took four short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, edch with a com‘pletely different cast and\ a_ different director, and welded them into one pic.ture which Maugham himself introduces and winds up. ‘Quartet is the subject of the latest programme in. the BBC series Picture Parade, which "will be broadcast from 4YA at 4.0 p.m, on Sunday, October 9, Somerset Maugham’s voice is heard in the programme, and in addition to excerpts from the four shorts, listeners will hear interviews ,in the studio with Anthony, Darborough, who produced the. film, Arthur Crabtree, one of the directors, and Mai Zetterling and Dirk Bogarde, who appear in two of the four’ stories. t