THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 556, 17 February 1950, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

TEWING quietly over their communications receivers and recordérs, thé monitoring, ‘staff of the NZBS are .fecording the addresses broadcast in the British ‘lection campaign. Altogéther, these will make up about seven hours’ broadcasting time, a littlé too long for one sitting. So other members of the’ NZBS staff are extracting the juice from the meat, the attar from the rosés and these distilled essences will be presented on February 23, Election Day in Britain, in oné half-hour programme, It is hoped to present, through the extracts from the leading speeches and an interpolated commentary, the issues on which the Election seems to turn, the main planks of each party’s platform, and the similafities between the partiés’ policiés as well as their differences. Every éffort is being- made to make thé controversy as seal as possible, and at the same time to keep the balance. National stations will link for this programme at 8.0 p.m, Heard and Not Seen ACKGROUND music suggests the old silent ‘films-the days of The Bartered Bride on the batteréd -piano. But until it’s replaced by sométhing more adequate, Background Music it re-mains-a score that is spécially written to fit the film, a vital link iti the techhical production of a movie in which the composer is as much a member of the team as the camerarnan and the film-editor. One composer maintains that the filmgoer should not be conscious of film-music ag something distitict from the filfn itself-that it should never impingé on the filmgoer’s consciousness. In other words, the best film music is the

kind we don’t hear, béecausé it is bound up with thé photography and the acting. A lot of music from the best films. of recent yéars has been recorded and somé of this will be broadcast from 1YC on Thursday, Fébruary 23, beginning at 8.0 p.m. This threequarter hour, pro-

: gramme inckides Richard Addinséll’s Waltz and Prelude from Blithe Spirit, music by Arnold Bax from Olivér Twist, and Vaughan Williams’s ifcidental music from Scott of thé Artaretic. The broadcast. ends with William Al; wyn’s "Calypso Music". from The Rake’s Progress. Respectabitity EORGE GERSHWIN éstarted his career as a fairly low form of life, even among salesmen. He was a song plugger for a New York firm of miusic publishérs, which meant that he had to hang about stage doors and the back entrances of night clubs, buttonholing singers and dance band leaders and,trying to sell them the idea that the song his publishing firm were sponsoring that week was the one that would carry the performer into the big timé. Whether he was so dépressed with the matérial he had to plug, ot whether he was ohe of those people who naturally havé tunés in their heads is not récordéd, but, after a while he started to write songs »

himself, pretty good ones like Summertime and I Got Rhythm. Like the clown who longs to play Hamlet, he couldn’t stop there; hé wanted to write music that would be accepted in more traditional circles. He and Paul Whiteman collaborated in a campaign to make jazz respéctable, and some of thé shots they fired in théir campaign weré Rhapsody in Blué; An American in Patis, and Cuban Overture. There ate differing -opiniong§ whéther thesé compositions are (a) jazz, or (6b) music; but Eneeey ee ee ~~

doubts that they’ made monéy. Listen to Paul Whiteman and hig Concert Orchéstra playing Cuban Overture from 2YA at 8.44 p.m. on Wednesday, Febtuary 22, ; Singspiel ~INGING classes wére sométimés not thé most popular part of school life. Things are probably different now, but it must still depénd a lot on the approach of thé téachér; the teacher's enthusiasm and feéling for music; Long ' ago -thére uséd to be a song children sang in school singing classes; what its namé ig doésn’t mattér now, but it was. always sung as Haify Turnips, and in it there was a réSounding line which went "Hairy turnips, hairy turnips, haity turnips raw!" @oltan Kodaly wroté a comie opera, or singspiel, called Hary Janos, who was a chatactér aftén thé style of Baron Munchausén. If Kodaly had as much fun writing Hary Janos as the barbarian youth of New Zealand had singing Hairy Turnips, singspié! is the very word to déscribe it. On Wednesday, Fébruary 22, 2YZ presents Hary Janos in its story behind the music series at 7.30 p.m. Musical Division of the Education Department, pléase note. Village Under the Water (CONSIDERED by the critics to be oné of the bést of the néw films showing in Lotidon recéntly, The Last Days of Dolwyn.is substantially the work of one man, Emlyn Williams, the noted playwright and actor. The story opens in a little ee Wales-a village in a valley, cut off from the rést of the world by the all round it. Everyone is very poor, but mostly happy. Into this paradise comes the mysterious stranger. He is the boy drivén out of the village years ago for stéaling monty from the

chapel. But now he has come back, a ‘successful business man, and he wants to buy up the village, so that he can turn the valley into a huge réservoir. Written and directed by one man there is tio chance in thnnfilm for too many cooks to spoil the broth. Williams himsélf is a Welshman, of course, and everything has the authentic Welsh flavour, In the BBC programme, Picture Parade, which listeners will hear at 9.30 p.m. from 4YA on Friday, February, 24, Emlyn Williams tells of his long search for a village to répresent Dolwyn in the film. His productiot’ team looked. at nearly sixty Welsh villages before they hit on the right oe, for "Dolwyn’" had to conform to a number of requirements -it had to be small, compact, and in a valléy. Finally, in Merionethshire,; absolutely by chance, Williams saw what appeared to be two chimney pots standing in a field; but there was smoke comitg out of them. He jumped out of the car and hurried over, and there was his "Dolwyn"-chapel, inn, well, village shop and all. Co-starring in the film is Dainé Edith Evans, one of Englatid’s greatest stage actresses. She, too, is heard in the programme, which includes éxtracts from the sound-track of the film, Window on Holland EELAND is only ore of the areas in Holland where the people are too busy making good the devastation of war to dwell of past_triumphs or tragedies. Leonard Cottrell, a BBC producer, saw sticking up in the middle of a clover field the hulk of a 400-year-old ship that had sunk there during thé time ‘of the Armada, but the Dutch, he found, aré tod coricerned with farming their néwly-réclaimed land to worty about présérving such relics. His programme, Witidéw on Holland, will be broadcast from TYA at 4.0 p.m. on Sunday, February 26. The voices of men and women from. mpatly patts of the Netherlands are heard in it; not those of farmers only,

but of people con-+ nécted. with the arts as well. One of Holland’s leading authors and_theatrical producers talks about post-war. devélopmerit in the theatre, atid of \the extraordinary growth in opera and the

ballet, and a leading organist plays on the organ. of the ancient Nieuwekerk some of the music he played at the coronation of Princess Juliana. Horn Trio "HE first performance of a new coms position by Dr. H. J. Finlay, of Wellington, will be broadcast from the studios of 2YA at 8.5 p.m. on Sunday, February 46. The work is a Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, written in the key of F Major: There ate three move- . ments: allegro vivace, adagio romanza, and scherzo pastorale. The players will be Peter Glenn (horn); Efic Lawson (violin), and Shirley Carter (piano). Dr. Finlay is kaown for his Prelude and Fugue in A Flat Major, which was played by the National Orchestra at a concert last November. »