Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 24

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

here) will give a recital of tenor songs from 2ZA Palmerston North on Sunday, April: 26, at 6.30 p.m. Born in India, he came to New Zealand with his parents when he was five and settled in Wellington. His first public , h DENTON (pictured

-> musical experience was at the age of 13 when he becameea member of the choir of St. Gerard’s Church, Wellington. Later he joined the Wellington Choral Union and the Schola Cantorum. While living in Wellington Mr. Denton took leading parts in Wellington Amateur Operatic Society productions and during the 1939-45 war he was associated with the Armed. Forces Operatic Society. In 1947 he moved to Palmerston North, where he has become connected with many musical activities. By profession he is an accountant and company secretary. oe

REFLECTIVE

\V ILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S Second Symphony, rejected by the BBC yet given the Edinburgh Festival prize,

is a "modern" work-un-cosy and often dissonant.

according to an English critic. After its first performance in

London a member of the audience remarked that the character of the work was not entirely the composer’s fault; rather was it a "reflection of the times." An English journal says that deep in rural Surrey, Mr. Wordsworth’s pleasantly designed house stands in the garden of what was once his family home. He is a clergyman’s son, privately educated; his horoscope, cast when he was 10, hinted that a public school might be bad for his creative impulse. In the late war he was a pacifist and worked on the adjacent land. He composes in a garden hut and in between times works on his own ground to produce for the Substantial needs of his vegetarian household. His next-door neighbour has a music room with seats for 100, and in the 18th Century setting many of Wordsworth’s works get their first hearing. In any event, Mr. Wordsworth, who makes little of his indirect descent from the poet, has nothing against "the times." Because they dictate no set style he finds them interesting musically, and he thinks them stimulating because they are at once threatening and enormously promising.

JAZZ IN LONDON

gees is having a great following in Britain these days. It falls into two categories-"traditional" jazz, which attempts to recreate the improvised music

of the ‘twenties, and "modern jazz,’ in which new ideas are continually cropping up. Sunday night is

jazz night at the Lyceum Theatre, London, and the current trend is said to be away from the "cool" music of the Lennie Tristano school; a more markedly rhythmic style is returning.

PALEFACE BARITONE

ALTHOUGH the American baritone John Charles Thomas was seen and heard by many thousands when he toured New Zealand in 1947; and his photograph has appeared in The Listener several times, an old question cropped up again last week. A corre-

spondent, A.L.B., ‘writes: "My wife insists that John Charles Thomas is a

Negro. I say he’s not. Who’s right?" You are, Mr. B. And* Thomas, if you want to know any-

thing further, is a grand opera, lieder and ballad singer, whose recitals range

from classics to cowboy songs. Because he made several secords of Negro songs, there is still the persistent idea that he must be a coloured man. He originally intended to be a doctor, but after studying medicine for a year, he competed with 80 other candidates for a scholarship at Peabody Conservatoire in Baltimore and won. Three years at that institution ended in an audition with Henry Savage, which resulted in an engagement that gained him the reputation of being the highest paid» artist in musical comedy. But he was ambitious. and gave as much time as~ he could to lieder repertory, and while in Brussels was given a contract at the Roya] Opera. His debut in Brussels in Herodiada was followed by engagements to sing at Covent Garden, London, and in Berlin, Vienna, and with the Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco opera companies. He also became a member of the New York Metropolitan Opera Company. ~

FINDING TALENT

OW does a young musician-it might well be a New Zealander in search of fame-bring himself to the notice of the BBC? The Corporation, of course, has a great responsibility in finding and

encouraging new talent, and some .interesting facts are given by Eric Warr, a member of the BBC’s Music

Division, in an article in the Radio Times. Every fortnight seven auditions are Meld in London. At all the auditions the candidates are anonymous. They perform before a microphone and those who report hear the performance in another room and judge solely. by what they can hear, In reporting on these candidates the BBC calls on the services of eminent musicians who are not on the staff of the BBC. Young musicians who wish to broadcast in London must write to the Music Booking Manager and give details of their professional experience. Professional standing

is essential because the BBC has an agreement with the Incorporated Society of Musicians not to engage amateurs in London. If this information is satisfactory an audition is given. At this first audition, which lasts for 12 minutes, performers are heard by three people; two of these are judges who are not members of the staff of the BBC; the other is the Music Booking Manager of the BBC. Those who pass this audition are given another one. This time the judges consist of one assessor not on the BBC’s staff, and three members of the Music Division of the BBC. For the successful candidate an engagement to broadcast will follow as soon as possible. The first broadcast of a new performer is also heard by a member of the staff of the BBC, and a member of the Outside Listening Panel which, again, includes eminent musicians. A recording is also taken. Duos, quartets and chamber music ensembles are selected in the same way. The BBC does not usually ask a brass band or a choir to attend the studio, but sends a representative to a rehearsal. When an orchestra has become newly established, it will probably be judged at a public concert. Foreign artists, too, must give auditions. unless theif work is already known to the BBC. +

CORONATION COMMENT

ERE is a photograph of Jean Metcalfe, who introduces the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, and who is to join the

team of sound commentators for the Coronation broadcast.

from a room overlooking the quadrangle of Buckingham

BBC photograph Palace, she will describe the scene as the Queen enters the State Coach for the procession to Westminster Abbey. *

PLEASURES OF . FENESTRATION

VE have got a gratifying number of people who can actively enjoy an absence of action-people who, like Sir Max Beerbohm, appreciate the gentle

pleasures of "fenestration," which means just sitting at-a win-

dow and ruminating over what you see going on outside it. Some of these people, I notice, do occa-

sionally plunge down into the dust and heat of the arena of physical exertion. If they’re lucky enough to have access to a fuchsia tree, they may spend an exhausting hour or two going round popping the buds. And although I haven't yet run across a New Zealand Lodge of that Society that calls itself "The Snailwatchers of Great Britain,’ I feel morally certain that somewhere in the Dominion there must be an active society whose vocation it is to’ go in for -well, frog-listening, for example.From an NZBS Book Shop programme. *

-, FOR HIM NO HAMLET

ERNARD BRADEN, whose BBC show First Rehearsal is now being broadcast on Saturday nights by the four YA stations (other stations later) recently satished a personal ambition

and at the same time returned temporarily to a job he did as a broad-

caster in Canada before the BBC claimed his services. Bernard Braden is a great admirer of the American humorous writer Mark Twain. He was delighted with an opportunity to give a reading from one of Mark Twain’s books in the BBC’s Third Programme, and he recalled that as a reader on the radio in Canada he broadcast hundreds of stories in the space of three years, Braden, by the way, is another comedian who is Not pining to play Hamlet, for the simple reason that he was a Shakespearian actor in Canada years before turning to comedy. His latest straight part is in a London play The Man, in which he is said to give a spine-chilling interpretation of a homicidal maniac. Most actors would: look on a role of that sort as extremely

demanding and strenuous, but Braden, the comedian, says it’s not as hard as working. up enthusiasm at a Monday first house in any music hall. = 4

SOFT PEDAL CHARLIE

x HARLIE KUNZ, born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, began to play the piano at the age of six, and by the time he was 15 he led his own band.

He went to Britain more than 30 years ago and has been a popular

’ artist there ever. since. He has a peculiarly individual’ style Which accounts for his nick-name, and