It's a Long Way to Tipperary

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 633, 17 August 1951, Page 10

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

CCORDING to our mood, either "Third" programmes are our meat, whatever is on, or else we feel disinclined to nod through learned lectures or sleepily wait while Mahler’s music lurches along like a tired old dinosaur, on the chance of catching the unexpected. But then we risk missing such a programme as Eileen Duggan’s tribute to James Stephens, planted like a ruby in 1YC’s bale of hay. Here was a script written with the "blood and bone simplicity" she ascribed to Stephens’s poetry, giving in a brief fifteen minutes a clear conception of the man, his work and his environment. Phyllis Chapman read the script attractively, but the poems did not quite ring the bell. When regional accents are called for, the BBC seems able to find trained readers with the right voice, but it appears that the NZBS must, apart from a few ubiquitous Cockneys, choose between persons with the right accent who can’t read poetry or trained readers without the authentic tones. On this occasion, the reader made a brave try, and interpreted the poems well, but his assumed accent sounded uncertain to me with the brogue in my mind I was after catching from a recent BBC programme recorded in Dublin. Portmanteau Labels OT the least of programme organisers’ worries must be the choice of suitable session titles. Such meaningless labels as Musical Snippets, Rhythm Roundup or Orchestral Parade are less common nowadays (perhaps because of the drubbing they have received from dyspeptic radio critics). The more informative Accordion Interlude, Popular Choirs, Albert Sandler Trio ~predominate now, and so long as we cannot expect every number to be listed, they seem not inadequate, Sometimes titles are actively helpful; 1YD’s Dusty Discs intrigues as much as its Cowboy Corner repels this confirmed hillbillyophobe. Yet there are still examples in plenty of the misleading title. Grin and Share It, which I expected to find an ITMA-ish show, proved to be a session for which the ZB Behind the Microphone label would have been more appropriate, and 1YA’s agreeable musical offering, Tuesday Serenade, touches a new low in uninspired titles. The most recent off-put-ting title I encountered was that of an excellent session of authentic Mexican music,’ called Museum of Modern Art, as it was recorded for that institute, but leading the incautious listener to expect a discourse on Rouault and Matisse.

J. C.

R.