THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 545, 2 December 1949, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

TARTING on Monday, December 5, a programme of news, views, and interviews, edited and compiled by United Nations Radio at Lake Success, will be heard from the YA and YZ stations every Monday-~- following the 9.0 p.m. News. United Nations Album, as the programme is called, is designed to give listeners some idea of the work being done at Lake Success, and to enable them to hear the voices of leading personalities in the international scene. The first programme includes an interview with an Australian girl, Evelyn Rothfield, who is visiting America, a short talk by an,American professor who is attending a conference on environmental sanitation in Geneva, and a discussion between a UN radio reporter who has been studying the question of Arab refugees in Palestine, and Stanton Griffis, the United States Ambassador to Argentina. United Nations Album is timed for broadcast at 9,15 p.m. Are We Lucky to be Alive? ADY VIOLET BONHAM CARTER recently recorded a talk for the BBC in which she sounds a challenge to those who are daunted by the problems and tragedies of the present age. Faith and courage are her keynotes. Just because it is a time of great changes, great dangers, and great possibilities for evil or good, she says, it is therefore the time of the greatest opportunity. Despair, in her opinion, is the one unforgiveable sin. Instead, we must dare to face the truth and we must hope. Lady Violet is the daughter of Lord Asquith, Britain’s Prime Minister during the First World War, and she is a leading figure in the Liberal Party, vice-chairman of the United Europe movement, and honorary president of the United Nations Association in England. She was also on the Board of Governors of the BBC from 1941 to 1946. Her talk has been called Are We Lucky To Be Alive Today? and will be broadcast from 1YA at 7.45 p.m. on Monday, December 5. Discussions from 2YA AT 8.20 p.m, on the first Monday in every month, starting on December 5, a new 2YA panel will discuss listeners’ questions. The members will be H. C. D. Somerset, Senior Lecturer in Education at Victoria University College, A. E. Hurley, barrister and solicitor, Malcolm Mason, an accountant and author, and the regular chairman, Peter Green. A slightly different method of questioning will be used with this panel. Instead of having the questions fired at them as they sit before the microphone, the members of the panel will now be given time to consider them before the broadcast. The discussion on the following Monday, December 12 (at 8.20), will be on the subject of State Aid to Private Schools. Those taking part will be the Rev. Dr. Gascoigne, the New Zealand Director of Catholic Education, the Rev. J. S. Somerville, Minister of St. Andrew’s Church, Wellington, and W. J. Wilson, Chairman of a school committee. The Winter Journey "\{UCcH mournful music has fallen from the pens of composers to -| whom the business of living was a searing experience," says Richard Anthony

Leonard in The Stream of Music, "The Winter Journey songs of Schubert belong in the forefront of those expressions of the shaken and sorrowing _mind." This series contains the greatest of Schubert’s songs. It was written in 1827, the year before he died, at a time when he was sick and often acutely melancholy. The songs tell of the wanderings of a man who is driven mad bv the

unfaithfulness of his, lover, and who finally throws in his lot with an old beggar who plays a barrel organ. The madman, with bitter irony, hopes that this organ grinder will set his songs to music. The first part of The Winter Journey may be heard from 2YA at 7.30 p.m. on December

6, presented by Kenneth Macauley (baritone) and Audrey: Gibson-Foster (piano). The second part will follow on December 13. f

Problem for Players, M. BARRIE’S little play The Will * poses a special problem for the radio actor. Its three scenes are set in the same lawyer's office, but there is an interval of 20 years between each. On the stage, this gives the players a chance to make the most of costume and makeup, but on the air they have only their voices with which to convey the passage of time. A BBC production of the play, originally heard in the Scottish Home Service programme, will be broadcast from 3YA at 8.29 p.m. on Tuesday, December 6. James McKechnie plays the part of Philip Ross, at first a struggling but hopeful young husband making his first will, and finally the successful business man lonely, embittered and disillusioned, not knowing what to do with the wealth for which he has sacrificed his happiness. Yvonne Hills plays the part of his wife, and Bill Crighton and Derek Walker are the lawyers, father and son. The play was adapted and produced by James Crampsey. Studio Choral Group , ‘AFTER some months’ absence from the programmes, during which they have been working to attain the experience and unity of a ‘closely-knit ensemble, the 1YA Studio Choral Group will be back again on Wednesday, December 7, and on Wednesday, December 14, This group consists of some of Auckland’s leading singers under the conductorship of Owen Jensen, brought together for the purpose of introducing listeners to’ unfamiliar works-not necessarily contemporary, but those that are not often performed. On December 7 they will present Song of Destiny (Brahms) and will be accompanied by Patrick Towsey at the piano. Their second broadcast will be Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Vaughan Williams,

accompanied by a group of strings and with Stewart Harvey as soloist. Both broadcasts will be from 1YA-afid will begin at 7.30 p.m, Versatility ON Friday, December 9, at 4.0 p.m, 2YA starts a new series about musicians who have become distinguished in more than one sphere of music. The

series, which is entitled Strings to Their Bow, will include programmes on many well known names: John Barbirolli, who, before he became a conductor, was a first-rate cellist; Noel Coward, who has always had tunes as well as words running through his mind; Bruno Walter, who, appeared bothasconductor and pianist in

the Mozart A Major Concerto at a BBC Symphony Concert in 1932; Oscar Levant, a classical pianist and popular song writer; Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, who has also played* his clarinet with the Budapest String Quartet, and Alfredo Campoli, who recently ‘resumed his career as a concert violinist after spending many years dispensing elegant schmaltz with a small orchestra. Anybody with a slight knowledge of music would admit that in such a theme there is good listening for ten or twelve weeks. Home Thoughts from Abroad OR six weeks D._G. Bridson, one of the BBC’s best-known Writers and producers of features, toured New Zealand to collect material for two programmes on New Zealand-This is New Zealand, and The Maoris. In the course of his visit he travelled some 3,000 miles in both islands, talking to farmers, city workers, miners, and people in every walk of life to obtain a comprehensive picturé of the New Zeatand scene and the way the country has been opened up in the last 100 years. In the Rotorua district he made special recordings among the Maoris, not only of hakas, poi dances, and songs, but also of interviews with farmers, guides, schoolteachers and others. This is New Zealand, with music by Douglas Lilburn, will be broadcast from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Friday, December 9. The Maoris, which features as one of its principal speakers Inia Te Wiata, the well-known Maori bass who is studying music in London, will be broadcast at a later date.

Beveridge in India ORD BEVERIDGE, the author of Britain’s plan for social security, was born in Rangpur, Bengal, where his fathet was a member of the Indian Civil Service. Recently he recorded a talk for the BBC under the title British Adventure in India, and in it he speaks of the work of his parents and his own boyhood there. He points, out that many of the very best of Britain’s young men used to be sent to India, and that in spite of political changes, India and Pakistan can still use their. help. The talk will be broadcast from 4YZ at 2.15 p.m. on Sunday, December 11.