THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 541, 4 November 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

The German Requiem BRAHMS stands in the front rank of composers of~choral music and partsongs, and among his works in this department A German Requiem is unique, in that it bears no resemblance to any other requiem. It also has another claim to attention, since it became swiftly ‘known and admired, and established the composer’s general fame. The work differs from ecclesiastical requiems in its use of freely chosen texts from the Lutheran Bible instead of the familiar liturgical Latin phrases of the Mass. The opening chorus, Blessed are they that go mourning, combines profound tenderness of mood with a perfect mastery of polyphonic writing, while the second number, All flesh is as the grass, is a powerful and majestic section conceded to be one of the greatest choruses made.since Beethoven. New. recordings of the work were recently received by the NZBS, and they will be broadcast from 2YC at 9.0 pm, this Sunday, November 6. The performers are the Choral Society of the Friends of Music, ‘with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan. On London’s Borders BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (Bucks for short) is one of those south midland counties of England where countryman and townsman have worked out a plan for living happily together. Its area is 743 square miles and the land is largely agricultural. But it is also a "dormitory" where many thousands of London’s tiptoe and professional men _ have their homes, so that they can indulge in the pleasant habit of getting away from it all. Bucks’ chief claim to fame is that it possesses one of the most notable institutions of England-Eton College. It also has another-the complacent good nature of the Buckinghamshire farmer, does not object to his land being ridden over by a hunt whose members spend the rest of the week sitting in city offices. A word-picture of Buckinghamshire and its people, written for the BBC’s Overseas Service by Jack Hargreaves and recorded by the BBC Transcription Service, will be broadcast from 3YA at 8.40 p.m. on Tuesday, November 9,'in the Looking at Britain series, Potter-The-Otter D Stripe the Badger, Potter-the-Otter, Digger Mole, and the other folk who live in Deep Wood down by Wild River are great favourites with listeners to the Children’s Hour in the BBC North Region. Listeners to 4YZ’s Children’s Hour will be able to hear some of their adventures in the BBC serial The River Bandit, which starts at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8, In this’ story Stripe, Potter, and Company are faced with trouble right from the start. Potter's water-wheel has been smashed and his boat stolen; Digger’s vegetable garden has been laid waste; and the lantern has disappeared from where it used to hang outside Stripe’s beech-tree home. It’s all very strange, so strange in fact that it takes six thrilling instalments to clear up the mys_tery. The @Greator of these engaging

creatures is Elleston Trevor, and The River Bandit was produced by Nan Macdonald. The Reluctant Leprechaun HEN Walt Disney announced on a recent visit to Ireland that he was looking for leprechauns to put in a new film, some people weren't sure whether he was joking or not. Leprechauns, of course, do exist as vividly in the Irish imagination as fairies, dragoris, and ogres do in the minds of our own child-ren-dnd one features prominently in

>/_-_----- |e ----- the BBC play The Spell, a fantasy based on the three wishes traditionally granted by fairies for services rendered. John Heraty and his wife sit, unknowingly, on a fairy green. He captures a leprechaun, trussing the little chap firmly with a thread of wool from his chest protector. In return for its freedom the leprechaun reluctantly agrees to grant its captor’s three wishes. And what does Mr. Heraty wish? Listeners will find out if they tune in to 2YC at 9.0 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. An interesting feature of the play is its incidental music, written by Dr, J. F. Larchet, Professor of Music at the National University of Ireland. It has been broadcast independently by the. BBC as an orchestral suite. History of the Overture [N earliest time an overture bore little resemblance to the work it preceded, and as often as not the overture of one opera would be played before the performance of another. Overtures were also used to open plays, oratorios, ballets, or suites. Gluck was the first to identify the overture' with the opera it prefaced, while Mozart went a step

further by introducing into it themes from the opera itself. Further .developments were made by Beethoven, Tchaikovski, and Wagner. The overture also branched off in another direction, starting from the instrumental prelude, which became popular.in Italy at the’ end of the 16th Century, and was known as the Sinfonia (in England, Symphony) or Toccato. Lully laid the foundations of the classical symphony by dividing this form into three parts, creating the French Overture, which was used extensively by Purcell and Handel. Thus even at the end of the 18th Century those symphonies of Haydn belonging to the Salomon set were still called "Overtures," A series of programmes outlining the history of the overture starts from 2YA at 4.0 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. --