THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 552, 20 January 1950, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

OW is the Giant Panda’s health this week? What are the London newspapers saying about the date of the general election? News from Home is a BBC programme designed to give new settlers in New Zealand some idea of what people in England are talking about from week to week-a bulletin of "news clippings and gossip from the heart of the Commonwealth. It has just started from 2YA at 8.45 a.m. on Sun‘day mornings. News from Home’ is ‘broadcast om shortwave in the BBC’s Pacific Service every Saturday night, and is under the direction of Robert Reid, a former news editor in the BBC’s | Midland Regional programmes. It is picked up in Wellington, recorded, and rebroadcast by 2YA the following morning. Vexed Question HE young Alfred Cortot, after a brilliant debut as a pianist, went to Bayreuth, was completely bowled over by | Wagner’s music, and became assistant / conductor under Mott! and Richter. In 1902 he went back to Paris and gave the first performance there of Gotterdammerung, besides conducting other works of Wagner. After that he mixed conducting, academic work at the Conservatoire of Paris, and the Ecole Normale de Musi- que, which he founded, concert piano playing, lecture-recitals, and the playing of chamber music with Thibaud, the violinist, and Casals, the "cellist. His publications include a scholarly annotated edition of Chopin’s Studies, and two volumes of musical essays. He was a Commander of the Legion of Honour. Then he tan off the rails in World War IL, collaborated with the Nazis, and expressed regret that he was too old to fight on their side. Casals, landing in America after the war, expressed himself philosophically and sadly on the subject: "Cortot was bad," he is reported to have said, "Thibaud was mad..." and he shrugged, giving the impression that he was the only one of the trio left who was worth more than a sou on the black market. Nevertheless Cortot is still a very great pianist, perhaps the foremost living player of Chopin, Schumann, César Franck, and Debussy. He can be heard from 3YA at 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, January 26, in the series, Notable Concert Artists. Debussy Preludes [DEBUSSY’S instrument was the piano. He was most sensitive to trends in music, and when his gently waving psychic antennae picked up something new, he went to his piano and played his own ideas on the subject. Thus in 1908 he felt the influence of jazz,wafting across the Atlantic from the Southern States of America. Golliwog’s Cake Walk and Minstrels were the result. They weren’t jazz, but they were good fun, and interesting in that they showed another facet of Debussy’s talent, The real Debussy-lightly serious, fleeting, exquisite-is perhaps best heard in his two books of Preludes, tho first written in 1910, and the second between 1910 and 1913. It is hard to imagine a more diverse collection of pieces, or one with such a basic unity of conception: Footsteps in the Snow, Homage to Mr. Pickwick, The Little Hills of Anacapri, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, The Engulfed

Cathedral; all different, all Debussy. Listen to Debussy Preludes from TYZ at 11.15 a.m. on Tuesday, January 24. Golden Age of Opera T is hard to pin an age, particularly a golden age, down to a couple of dates, but there seems to be general agreement that there was a golden age of opera, and that it lasted from the 1880's to the early 1920’s, About the middle of this golden age, a curious invention known as the gramophone made its appearance. At first many artists would have nothing

to do with the thing, which, considering the violence it did to their voices, was understandable, but Enrico Caruso took the plunge, and once in, found that the water was full of pound notes and dollar bills. Occasionally new ‘pressings are taken from the old master records by artists such as Tetrazini, Chaliapin, Melba and Caruso, and the NZBS has secured a number of these. They will be presented by 2YC in a series of three programmes, starting at 8.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 29, and continuing at the same time on February 12, and March 12. These programmes will cover the period 1903-1920. Although the recordings are technically inferior to the modern electrical ones, listeners will be able to gain a fair idea of the ability of the famous artists they hear. Out of the Wilderness \WHEN Neil Fergus took over a block of land at Waihi Beach just before the war his holding might have been, perhaps optimistically, called "partly improved." On his return from overseas service that description np longer applied and Fergus began from scratch the task of building his own home (he and his wife lived in a caravan while he did it), and creating a prosperous farm out of the wilderness. The story of how he went about it, building, fencing, draining extensive swamps, clearing, plougiing and grassing, will.be told from 1YA in For the Farmer at 7.0 p.m. on Wednesday, January 25. It is a tale that should appeal not only to farmers but also to any listéners who may be suffering from the slightest doubts about the continued survival of the pioneering spirit of the early settlers. The broadcast will be the fourth of 21 interviews with practical farmers scattered throughout the northern Bay of Plenty area, ‘from Waihi to Tauranga. Others in the series may be heard from 1YA at the same time on consecutive Wednesday evenings. The Wild and the Discreet HE wild men learned the hard way. They played wherever they could find a piano; in low dives when the regular pianist was too drunk to sit on his stool,

or in unoccupied churches until the duly appointed organist came back to practise and threw them out on their ears. They had no money. They had to steal their music as well as their bread. No wonder their playing was a little wild. They had no comfortable middle ground to stand on, they were either hectic or sad: men like Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hynes, Fats Waller, Art Hodes, Joe Sullivan, Jess Stacey, and Art Tatum. The discreet had their early: years a little easier. Possibly they didn’t all have a chance to study formally, but they got enough to tame their wildness, if not to give them depth. They graduated to highly enamelled night clubs where they played’'as an accompaniment to the: customers’ conversation, as an aid to relaxation, and to help with their tunes to bring back sentimental memories. In England you hear them in the music halls, their trademark is an easily recognised individual style. Two of the discreet, "Soft Pedal" Charlie Kunz, and Carmen Cavallaro, are offering their wares from 3YA at 4.15 p.m. on Friday, January 27. Poetry School ‘, HE Victoria University College Regional. Council of Adult Eduéation will hold a four day Poetry School in Wellington between Tuesday and Friday, January 24 and 27. The arrangement of lectures, will, according to the printed announcement, be similar to that used successfully at the Dunedin Poetry School last year. Lectures will be: given on The Bases of Poetry, Contemporary Poetry, New Zealand Poetry, Verse in Drama, and the various aspects of the Speaking of Poetry, which last subject will ‘be specially emphasised throughout the period of study. . The school will not be entirely formal; there will be long breaks for morning and afternoon tea to enable students to get to know one another. At 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, January 26, 2YA will broadcast a discussion on the speaking of poetry. The speakers will be Professor S. Musgrove, of Auckland University College, Zenocrate Mountjoy, and the young New Zealand poet» James K. Baxter. : ‘ Avebury and Stonehenge O more than a few Englishmen Sal/ isbury Plain is simply a reminder 6f interminable hours of footslogging and other martial exercises to be forgotten as quickly as may be. But also on the, Plain aré two of Britain’s great historic landmarks-Avebury and Stone- henge. One of the oldest references to the weird collection of stones is in the writings of Henry of Huntingdon (died 1154) who cites Stonehenge ,as_ the second of the four wonders of England. Inigo Jones, in his treatise on Stonehenge written at the command of James I., and published in 1655, timidly puts forward a suggestion that it was built by the Druids, but he goes on to say with more emphasis that it is a Roman temple inscribed to Coelus. Avebury is a little village to the north of Stonehenge and a thousand years older. Both places will be described in detail in a talk in the BBC series, Landmarks of Britain from 3YA at 4.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 29. The speaker will be Brian VeseyFitzGerald, naturalist and broadcaster.