Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 772, 7 May 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

HE other lunch hour-a lull in the wind allowed the | labels on some cabin trunks | to stop waving goodbye for a moment. The trunks were on a truck parked in Manners Street, and their inscription turned out to be "Mr. T. Vaughan, Her Majestv’s

Theatre, Melbourne." There’s only one T. Vaughan in New Zealand as far as stage and musical fame go, and that’s Terry (when conducting the Wellington Studio Orchestra) and Terence (when a guest conductor of the National Orchestra of the NZBS), composer and pianist. His luggage made up the advance guard in a family move to Australia, for Mr. Vaughan has been appointed personal assistant to Frank Tait, managing director of J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd. Mr. Vaughan had had earlier musical experience in England-and on the Continent, but he became known best overseas and in this country as producer and musical director of the famous Kiwi Concert Party. Terry Vaughan told me the other day that his new job would include buying new shows, casting, and choosing producers, and that it would probably mean visiting England, the United States and Italy. During a visit to England last year he saw several shows, some of which have been bought by Williamson’s. Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan and their three children leave New Zealand next

weer tor ivieipourne; IVirs. Vaughan is _ particularly pleased with the idea, for that is her home town. * S53 A CONSTANT READER" (Rotorua) and "Miss UNSIGNED H.J.E." (Motueka): Your letters are not signed. fy

BROWNLEE AS TEACHER

a OHN BROWNLEE, Aus-tralian-born, and one time protege of Melba, has been engaged to succeed the late Friedrich Schorr.

of the Faculty of the Manhattan School of

Music. He is continuing to fulfil his opera and concert engagements while teaching in the school’s opera department. Brownlee, who.

made a tour of New Zealand for the NZBS in 1952, has recently been seen in the Metropolitan Opera productions of Die Fledermaus and Cosi Fan Tutte. *

"HAD ITS DAY"

OHNNIE RAY,~the crying crooner, said on his recent arrival in England, "I think the crybaby routine has had

its day. I was lucky to get over with it." Critics on some of

the London papers seem to be in complete agreement. On his first evening in London Ray dined with an old friend, Tom Driberg, MP.

LLOYD SLY QUARTET

ind "BILL" (Waitati, Otago): Details about the Lloyd Sly Rhythm Quartet have already appeared in these columns.

Sly himself plays the piano-accordion. For the other information you

want you should write to Lloyd Sly, c/- Station 1YA, Auckland. »

NEW MUSIC LECTURER

-" | EITH NEWSON, who since 1945 has been heard regularly over National stations in the "Rhythm for Juniors" sessions of Broadcasts to Schools, has been appointed Lecturer in

Music at the Christchurch Teachers’ College in succession to Ernest Jenner, who retired re-

cently. Last year he succeeded Victor C. Peters as conductor of the Christchurch Liedertafel-a body which dispenses fine choral music while the customers fill the air with pipe, cigar and cigarette smoke. As musical director of the Christchurch Primary Schools’ Music Festival Association since 1950, Mr. Newson has conducted massed choirs at festival performances every August; one of these programmes is relayed annually by-3YA_ or 3YC. The Christchurch Chamber Players, another group of which he is conductor, has broadcast from 3YA and in Music Magazine. During a trip abroad in 1948-49, Keith Newson ‘and his wife conducted two lessons on New Zealand

in the English sessions of Broadcasts to Schools conducted by the Norwegian Broadcasting Service. The three Newson brothers-the late Noel Newson (piano), Geoffrey (’cello)

and Keith (violin), were among the first instrumentalists to be heard from 3YA. They were on the air as early as 1926. *

"LA BELLE SIFFLEUSE"

"ESTHER" (Ashburton) writes: "Has the art of whistling ever been used in the performance of classical music? Could you tell me anything about it as a musical form?" md The technique of whistling has sometimes been developed to the point of

virtuosity, Percy Scholes tells us. In the late 19th Century an American, 4 Mrs. Alice Shaw, was a

famous whistler, known as "La Belle Siffleuse." A writer in the New York Musical Courier said in 1931 that no "jazz or cheap crooning stuff had a place in her repertoire, and her performances were equally sensational in the drawing rooms of kings, czars, emperors and maharajas, and the homes of the intelligentsia of the world’s capitals." Those performances were, by the way, among: the first to be circulated by Edison as _ records, for his phonograph in 1887 and following years.

~ Brenet’s Dictionnaire de la Musique (1926) says, "In the United States of America whistling has become a real art, and lovers of whistling have arrived at the point of combining in the whistled performance of duos, trios and classical quartets." In 1935 the Austrian Society for Experimental Phonetics examined the case of a’ young man able to whistle two notes (and two airs) at a time. It was even stated that he could whistle two-part fugues. More than this he could hum simultaneously. "Further, in the overture to Egmont the subject of this communication succeeded in obtaining sometimes a real orchestration, testifying to the possession of a remarkable musical taste." Dr. Ernest Walker of Oxford supplied Scholes with this information: "I have heard an _ undergraduate give a fairly reasonable rendering of the Elijah trio, ‘Lift Thine Eyes,’ all by himself. The tone quality was small, the intonation moderate to bad,

the rhythmical accuracy shaky. Still, it quite unmistakably was Mendelssohn. How he did it I cannot remember, but many others besides myself heard it, so it was not hypnotic suggestion." Some modern whistlers heard in NZBS recorded programmes can put up Startling imitations of birds; others are able to offer brilliant technique and a remarkably flute-like quality in whistling solos.

STRAVINSKY IN ENGLAND

* [GOR STRAVINSKY, 72, will visit ‘England to conduct a concert of his own works at the Royal Festival Hall on May 27. His programme will consist of Divertimento, Scenes de _ Ballet, Orpheus and Petrouchka. As a: young

man otravinsky was sent to study law, but swotted harmony as a sideline. When he was

«/ he was aimost unknown as a musician, but Diaghilef, who had heard his Fireworks orchestral fanfare, sent for him. The result was the ballet music The Firebird, which was a success from

the start. It was followed by Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring. At its first performance in 1913 the latter work caused a hostile demonstration -an occasion which Time recalled in reporting its triumphal performance in 1952 in the same theatre under the

same conductor. Stravinsky, Russianborn, lived in France for many years and became a French national. But he went to America during the recent war and is now an American citizen. Still best known for his theatrical music, he has nevertheless composed in other fields. One of his recent compositions is The Rake’s Progress. rs

SPORTS BROADCASTER

ERE is a man whose eyes have looked through the ropes at scores of boxing matches of world-wide inter-

est: He is Peter Wilson, who first

broadcast for the BBC from America when he covered the first Joe Louis-Joe Walcott fight in New York in Decem-

ber, 1947. Since then he has reported a number of boxing matches for the BBC: A confirmed Londoner, Peter Wilson has been a journalist in Fleet Street since 1932, except for the war years, when he ‘was commissioned in the Dorsetshire Regiment, although even then, in 1943, he was sent Overseas as special correspondent for the Union Jack, a British Army newspaper. Before the war he had been on the staff of The Times, Exchange Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial, and after the war he joined the Daily Express as_ sports columnist and special boxing writer. He is now back on the Daily Mirror.

THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE

"BRASSY" (Kaikoura) writes: "I have seen very little published about Tommy Dorsey. Could you tell me where he was born and how he became famous?"

Popularly known in America as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing,"

Tommy Dorsey, ‘trombonist member of the famous Dorsey Brothers,

is not so sentimental in real lifeespecially when he is arranging finan-

Clai matters instead of music. He was born in 1905 in a small Pennsylvania mining town, where his father doubled his work in the pits with that of local bandmaster and music teacher. When they became famous — simply through good musicianship and shrewdness — Jimmy was content to coast along on about £130,000 a year; brother Tommy pouched a paltry few thousand more. The brothers opened their own offices on Broadway, and their employees soon numbered well over 100, including musicians, secretaries, arrangers and so on. They also have their own sheet publishing business. Their first hit was a piece called "I Should Care."

There will be no "Open Microphone" next week; the feature will be resumed on May 21.