Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 759, 5 February 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

* NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD. °

By |

Swarf

HE name of Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the famous Boston Pops Orchestra, appears frequently in NZBS programmes. Here is some information about him received the other day. Named after the conductor Arthur Nikish, Arthur Fiedler was born in 1894

of Austrian parents. While he was still a boy his father retired after 25 years with the Boston Symphony, and _ took his family to Vienna. There the 15-years-old boy Arthur had not thought seriously about a career in his father’s profession. He wanted to be a publisher. Eventually -he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, where he studied conducting. In the Boston Symphony, Fiedler played the viola, celeste, organ and an occasional piano solo with the orchestra. In 1925 he organised the Boston Sinfonietta. Since 1930 he has conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra and has been absent for | only one half of one concert. He has also found time to fulfil guest engagements in San Francisco, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Seattle, Hollywood, Chicago and New York. Under his direction the Pop: Orchestra has recorded hundreds of works. : For Pops concerts the Symphony Hal] is cleared of its usual seating and the platforms providing graduated elevation are removed so that the floor is level. | Instead of aisles there are rows of small tables, each with five places: Smoking is allowed and other diversions like eating and light drinking are encouraged. The balcony audience has its refreshment bar, too, but upstairs patrons have ‘to forgo stich enjoyment except during the interval. Arthur Fiedler, Jewish-born, is married to Ellen Bottomley, and there are three children. ot

NEW TIFH

"CAROLINE" (Timaru) asks for a few lines about Johnny Johnston, of | Take It From Here. Johnston. who leads the Keynotes in the new BBC TIFH series (all YA stations, Saturday even-. .

ings, and all ZB stations and 2ZA, Sunday evenings), has been active in

the light music. world éver since he left school. When he was 15 he started with a music publishing firm as a pianist . demonstrator, and was singing and playing unti] 1939, when he joined the

Army. Seven years later, demobolised with the rank of major, he rejoined music publishing and added composing to his other accomplishment. It was about then that he joined the musical group, "The Pedlars" in Nayy Mixture When Charles’ Maxwell was planning his production of Take It From Here he commissioned Johnny to form a vocal group for the show. The result was the Keynotes, who have been with TIFH since it started. 2

ONE OF THOSE!

BAYES (Mt. Eden, Auckland): The "soprano Tiana Lemnitz has made several recordings, her most famous being perhaps, "And Even if Clouds," from the third act of Weber’s opera Der

Freischutz. She was born in Metz, Germany, in 1900. Her

father was a military band leader gnd conductor of the Metz Symphony Orchestra, and her mother taught singing. During a family conference to discuss Tiana’s future, she declared that she was going on the stage. Said her mother, icily: "So you want to become one of those, do you?" and swept from the room. The family gave in and Tiana was engaged by the Aachen Opera House to sing minor parts. One night a Star was taken ill and Tiana had to sing the role without rehearsal. That led to bigger parts and a better salary. She soon became so popular with a discriminating public that Sir. Thomas Beecham engaged her for important roles. After her success at Covent Garden, Tiana Lemnitz made a guest tour of most of the leading opera houses on the Continent, and a complete tour of South America followed. She is now producing opera as well as singing.

NO HALF-WAY MARK

mn ERE, "Amateur Conductor" (Levin), is what a critic said recently about the American orchestra leader, Andre Kostelanetz: "To modern composers he is the man who-presents their music in

the form they desire. He gives such care to his treatment of American music that

his wife, Lily Pons, after having seen him at work for two months on orchestrations and special settings for his latest record album, commented, ‘It was just like writing a three-act opera.’" Kos-

telanetz has spent as much of his time with "popular" music as he has with classical. Occasionally he is asked to comment on the conflict so often said to exist between the two. He claims

that there is no basic difference and that music can be divided into two categories only-good and bad. Recently in a lecture he gave at Oslo, Kostelanetz quoted from some of Mozart’s letters in which the composer spoke of being highly gratified at hearing his music played in cafes or whistled on the streets.. The name of Kostelanetz eans different things to different In America and Europe it is said to be the name of one of the most listened-to conductors on recordings.

RHYMES WITH WHARF

* A CORRESPONDENT living at Opoho, Dunedin, writes that he thinks "Swarf" an unusual pen-name. "Tyr Ts. |

* wrote it las a meaning," he says, and he suggests (1)

"Signed With a Record Fist," (2) "Scraps With a Record Fan." "Swarf" .forgoes any, claim to the rugged individualism implied in the correspondent’s interpretations. Swarf is simply the terhnical name for the thread

of material that comes out of the groove in an acetate disc when a recording is being cut. It rhymes with wharf. , ©?

COMMONWEALTH CLUB

na EFORE he left London (according to the BBC Overseas Press Bulletin) BBC commentator on the Royal Tour Wynford Vaughan Thomas spoke in the General Overseas Service about a new

programme, C0oOmmonwealth Club, which links list-

eners ali Over the Commonwealth. He told of the interest in Britain he always finds on his travels. He added that the BBC likes tg receive any information and entertainment from listeners to the General Overseas Service. One of his tasks during the Royal Tour was to meet G.O.S. listeners in \ i

front of a microphone and invite them to tell something of themselves, their lives and world. This personal encounter with Vaughan Thomas, said’ the’ bulletin, was possible for only a limited number, but the BBC also invited listeners to the G.O.S. to write direct to the BBC.

"DUNNERS"

¥* " ALTHEA" (Oamaru) asks why Jimmy Edwards, in Take It From Here occasionally calls David Dunhill "Dunners" and Dick Bentley "Benters." This is an old public schoo} custom,, found mainly in England, and, some

years ago in a New Zealand college. (It may still be in vogue here,

for all I know.) Dunhill, by the way, started work in the. Paris branch of famous pipe and tobacco manufacturers of that name. He turned to journalism and eventually reached the BBC in 1946 via the Egyptian State Broadcasting Company, where he was news reader and announcer. He lives in a Surrey village with his artist wife, small daughter and twin baby sons. He includes gardening and cooking among _ his hobbies. — =

REPRIEVE FOR DAD AND DAVE?

AD AND DAVE, the 16-year-old serial, due to go off the Australian air at the end of last year, is ‘likely

to be reprieved, according to The Broadcaster (Perth), Sponsors are seek-

ing an option on the show. One of the

bidders has ideas about reviving past episodes right from No. 1, while another is anxious to take up the threads from the last episode recorded last December, Membe*s of the cast of Dad and Dave sang "Old Lang Syne" at what was thought to be the final recerding.

They were Rodney Jacobs (Ted Ramsay), Dorothy Whitely (Rita Ramsay), Tohn Saul (Dave), Ethel Gabriel (Mrs mith), Peg Christensen (Mabel), Eric Scott (Bill Smith), Lou Vernon (Dad), Hope Suttor (Mum), Tom Farley (Alf Morton), and Lorna Bingham (Annie Morton). Lorna Bingham is also script writer. — -.

CAROLE JOINS THE PARTY ©

MONG the artists presented by John Watt in the BBC series of new programmes Songs from the Shows (2YA,

Saturday evenings), is Carole Carr, pictured here. Carole, who spent a’ good

part of 1952 entertaining troops in | Malaya and Korea, will sing, in*a forth-

coming episode of Songs from the Shows, a Jerome Kern: medley and the song by which Ivor Novello will long be remembered — "We'll Gather | Lilacs." John Watt delves into famous shows of the past for part of the programme, and he will recall "Tell Me Pretty Maiden," the famous sextet from Floradora, sung in this show by the George Mitchell. Choir, and "Queen of My Heart," which Haydn Coffin made .into a sensational success on thé first night of Dorothy in London in 1899, ‘ . . / )

NAVAL COMPERE

THOMAS WOODROOFE RN,, (Ret.) of a celebrated naval occa

sion, and _ who | visited New Zea- |

fand eariy in ivy, is acting as compere for a new BBC | show called These Radio Times. ) rrr ll