Late-Night Listening

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 757, 22 January 1954, Page 8

Late-Night Listening

[Tt is, perhaps, too early yet to expect any ma‘or changes in programming as a result of extended broadcasting

hours. I hope, however, that we will soon have something more from 1YA than a grab-bag of shreds and patches under such calculatedly vague titles as "Melody Mixture" and "Friday Serenade." Here is surely an opportunity for offering, at least one night a week, some more serious, but not too heavy, music, after 1YC has closed, even if it means taking a leaf out of the more enterprising 1ZB’s book, Station 1ZB’s 11 o'clock Sunday evening Enthusiast’s Corner has already given us the Olivier Henry V recordings, and promises Beethoven and Mozart symphonies, while one recent week evening, the station presented a half-hour of largely new Bur! Ives recordings. Here was richness indeed. My admiration for Ives’s artistry grows every time I hear him, but it is rarely that we have more than a single number in a miscellaneous "pops" session, so that 1ZB’s programme showed initietive and taste. Station 1YC has begun gingerly to explore the possibilities of extended time, but 1YA has yet to show that it can find something better than jazz orchestras and hackneyed ballads

for late-night listeners.

J.C.

R.