THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 26

THINGS TO COME

means as well known as his Fountains of Rome, . Respighi’s Suites of Ancient Airs. and Dances are works of considerable quality. These suites, the third of which will be heard from 2¥YZ on Monday, January 21, at 3.15 p.m., are made up of orchestral arrangements of airs originally composed for the lute. Res--pighi began arranging and transcribing old music when he was under the influence of his classical tutors at the Musical Lyceum at Bologna, and his work in making transcriptions lasted until the last years of his life. He found that the work of interpretation-of readjusting the old masters to the taste of his time-fulfilled a need in his im--agination, giving it the external stimuIetion that was always necessary to set they are by no it in motion. The ancient airs that he has used in the three suites have supplied this stimulation particularly well, for, besides being in accord with his classical training, they have allowed him wide latitude in his handling and free use of almost any form that he might have -wished to impose. | ‘No Soft Answer 1EW YORK reporters who bailed up William Faulkner, the American novelist, when he was on his way to Stockholm to collect the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature, asked him what he considered the most decadent aspect of American life. Paulkner said: "It’s this running people down and getting interviews and pictures of them just because something’s happened to them." Faulkner, who was awarded the prize for his "powerful and artisticaily independent contribution to the new American novel," has been described as iron-grey and taciturn, preferring hunting and fishing to literary circles. But literary circles don’t feel the same indifference to him. Recently they had a chance to reassess aim as a writer when a big volume of his stories written over the past 25 years or so was published. In the Book Shop session which will be heard from 3YZ at 9.45. p.m. on Monday, January 21, Frank Sargeson, himself a well-known short story writer, will review Faulkner’s Collected Stories. Fish Story AN authoritative series of five talks on The Freshwater Fisheries of New Zealand, by Derisley Hobbs, is being heard from 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursdays (the second of them on January 24). Anglers are naturally interested in knowing whére their game came from and how, but the difficulties involved in finding out, says Mr. Hobbs, were a few degrees worse than trying to get a fly out against the wind at night from the bank of a bush-lined stream. Anglers will understand and perhaps be thankful for the early enthusiasts who made New Zealand’s fresh water fishing. the superior sport it is today. Many will be interested, too, in Mr. Hobbs’s observations on the probability of present conditions lasting a few years longer. — Drama of the Fleece [N 4 new programme, The Wool We Wear, produced by the. NZBS, listeners will hear farmers, consumers, retailers, and mill managers taking part in a constructive little drama concerning all those aspects of our national economy into which the wool industry enters. That doesn’t leave much out, and when they have reached the end of the

programme listeners will have discevered that wool means a great deal more to them than merely something to wear. Sub-titled "A View of the N.Z. Wool Industry," this feature will be heard from 3YA at 9.45 p.m. on Monday, Jan-

uary 21, and from 1YA at 4.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 27. The YZ stations and 2XG and 2XN_ will present it later. Uncompromising "HE most rigidly uncompromising artist our country can show; a fanatic of ietters; dedicated to a search for truth that finched from nothing; »« litererary anchorite who, to save his soul as an artist, believed he must risk losing his soul as judged by the faith in which he was reared"-this was how L. A. G. Strong once wrote of James Joyce. The influences that went te the making of Joyce are an interesting study. Though he rejected the beliefs imbibed at a Jesuit school, there are some who say that he never escaped from the power of the church, In taking the hard way of fame as a novelist, Joyce neglected another big talent. With a _ beautiful tenor voice, he entered for the tenor solo class at the Feis in Dublin the year after it was won by John McCormack, looked like winning, then refused the last test. because, he said, it was inartistic to sightread a classical-_aria. Listeners will hear another view of James

Joyce when May O’Leary talks about him in the 2YA Women’s Session at 11.0 a.m. on Thursday, January 24. In Memory of Burns SCOTSMAN cannot be accused of being a "wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie" at any time, and on Friday, January 25, birthday of Bobbie Burns, he’s liable to prove decidedly otherwise. On that day people from the land of the heather will sing "Auld Lang Syne" and drink a toast to "The Immortal Memory." Throughout this country followers of Burns will celebrate an oceasion honoured throughout the world and several New Zealand stations will broadcast programmes designed to evoke Caledonian memories of the poet. At 8.0 p.m. 4YZ will offer its programme, The Immortal Robbie Burns; 2YA will present Burns's Night Music at 9.30. p.m., and from 4YA a series of songs for the Burns Anniversary will be given by Arthur Robertson at 8.45 p.m. Part ot the New Lynn Caledonian Society’s Burns Night Concert will be heard from 1YA at 7,50 p.m. All of these programmes are scheduled for January 25. Women Poets JOETRY is not a common pursuit today, But its importance as part of our society’s legacy to posterity has not been neglected. Enrica Garnier, who will present a talk entitled Three English Women Poets of Today at 8.4 p.m. on Friday, January 25, from 3YC, reveals this fact fully. Miss Garnier deals with the work of Edith Sitwell, Kathleen Raine and Anne Ridler, but in thus treating of three of the most important figures in poetry today, she tends to increase her audience’s understanding of the subject in general. Her commentary is not overly "technical," but includes those details of the lives of these women which are so helpful in understanding their writing. In her conclusion Enrica Garnier aptly remarks that ". . . we cannot expect to gather the harvest of poetry without patience and labour." Her own virtues in that respect are evident in this talk. Fifty Years of Melody "HERE have probably ,-been as many musical comedy titles up in lights over the last half. century as there has been water under Waterloo Bridge. But the names of those shows, and the songs that went with them, are pleasant memories to those who moved through that rosy glow of back-stage atmosphere, One is W. Macqueen-Pope, who knew the theatre during that period from every angle, writing about it, writing songs for it and watching its starry progress from one hit to the next. From ‘"Floradora," which bridged the turn of the century, to "Dear Miss Phoebe," the musical version of Barrie’s ‘Quality Street," which was running in London early in 1951, Macqueen-Pope traces the highlights of musical comedy. New Zealanders who remember those favourites as they echoed here, will probably listen to a BBC show, A Half Century of Musical Comedy, when it is broadcast from 4YA at 3.0 p.m. on Sunday, January 27. The BBC Midland Light Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Gilbert Vinter, and singers Joan Butler, Frederick Harvey, Stephen Manton, Billie Baker, and Dudley Rolph, will join in bringing their audience back to a happy ‘Do-you-remember-when" occasion.