Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 805, 24 December 1954, Page 16

Open Microphone

SUCCESS STORY

HEN the Gothic was here during the Royal Tour one of the favourite pieces of music played by the Royal Marine Band was Llewelyn Jones’s Maori Rhapsody. A recording of the | work by the Gothie band was made by the NZBS and broadcast from YA and YZ stations, and further broadcasts of it will be heard in the new year. When Llewelyn Jones was in Wellington recently on one of : his" periodic visits

from Auckland he came in to, see us and we learnt something of what it takes to be a successful musician.

Llewelyn Jones had his first music lessons in his homeland, Wales, where he studied the piano and was trained as a choir boy at the Newport Cathedral, Monmouthshire. As a lad he was brought by his parents to New Zealand, where he continued his- musical education. That was the beginning of the story. The present chapter, which could be called "Success," contains letters of congratulation on the performance of Llewelyn Jones’s music from famous musicians, or letters of acceptance of his works by equally famous bands and orchestras. The pianist Paul Schramm wrote: "I am very interested in your Cubana, Could you try and arrange it for one piano?" Mansel Thomas, acting head of Welsh Music for the BBC, wrote: "We have received several messages of appreciation | of the broadcast of your piano Llewelyn Jones spent 15 widigitien in Great’ Britain in 1950-51 when he and his wife were invited to a function at St. James’s Palace to meet the Queen, now the Queen Mother. He was also the guest of Sir Adrian Boult (from whom he received a recommendation) and Sir Malcolm Sargent, and he conducted a two-hour rehearsal of his Maori Rhap- sody with the Royal Welsh Guards Band. The chapters in between are not so easy to write. How can we describe the persistence necessary to get work accepted by the BBC over a foot-high pile of rejected manuscripts by other com-posers-and good manuscripts at that? How can we describe the patience necessary to capture the melody of the canoe song, passed down from generation to generation of the Arawa tribe, and sung to Mr. Jones by an old Maori woman so that he could use it in Maori Rhap-

sody? How can we describe the hours spent at the piano and manuscript book -practising, studying, analysing, arranging, composing? All this can only be hinted at, but the extent to which music dominates Llewelyn Jones’s life can be seen from his hobby-making pianos. He has made more than a dozen of them, quality instruments which are a tribute to the craftsmanship of this allround musician. =

NO MORE "WILD Lilie’

"| HE secret of Crosbie Morrison’s success is that he can happily combine his knowledge of wild life, which is wide and accurate, with a sympathetic awareness of listeners’ points of view. He has thus been able to communicate in his radio talks a personality that is friendly and quick to strike the level of his enquiries." This is what Dr. R.

A. Falla, Director of the Dominion Museum, said when asked by The Listener to comment on

the winding up of Mr. Morrison’s programme Wild Life after 574 episodes over the Commercial Network in New Zealand. That his radio programmes reflected a genuine interest in other people’s problems was illustrated when Dr, Falla was camping with Mr. Morrison and a party of ornithologists in the Mallee country-that is, a semi-desert type of country-50 miles from Mildura, Victoria. "After a very early morning expedition with his cameras, Mr. Morrison was having an after-lunch siesta when the camp was almost surrounded by children converging on it from the neighbouring countryside," Dr. Falla said. ‘News had got about that Crosbie Morrison was there, and the children were bringing their questions and specimens for identification. We made some effort to head them off, but Mr. Morrison was up and out as soon as he heard them. He spent the rest of the afternoon talking to them with apparent zest. "The broadcasts to which we have listened in New Zealand represent no more than a fraction of Crosbie Morrison’s work," Dr. Falla said. "He has been a teacher and a successful journalist and later has served on boards controlling nature reserves and scientific institutions. "Few radio programmes have maintained their popularity for so many

years nor appealed to such a wide range of age-groups," Dr. Falla concluded. "Granted that there is something universal in the interest appeal of animals, plants and nature generally, there is still the hard fact that not every radio speaker can make it interesting. Mr. Morrison has the satisfaction of knowing that a generation ‘of young Australians and New Zealanders have gained a permanent interest in nature and wild life from his talks." Wild Lite will finish from Stations 1ZB, 2ZB and 3ZB on Thursday, December 30. %

FROM "SOUTH PACIFIC"

])AvVID WELCH will be remembered as the young tenor romantic lead in the South Pacific company which toured New Zealand this year. He presents a programme of light music under the

title David Welch Sings, starting from the YA stations at 7.30 p.m. on Sat-

urday, January 8. The Oswald Cheesman Sextet provides the orchestral

Dacking and in each ' of David’s four programmes he _introduces a guest artist. First comes George Hopkins, _ clarinettist, then Mary Negus, Hazel Millar and Doreen Harvey, vocalists. South Pacific’s company produced another recitalist in the contralto Vir-

ginia Paris, who played the character role of Bloody Mary in the show. Offstage she proved to be a fine lieder and ballad singer, possessing a rich, mellow voice which she used with freat artistry. Virginia Paris trained extensively in America for her career which has included operatic, oratorio and concert recital work. For the NZBS she recorded eight programmes which will be heard from YA and YC. stations, beginning from 1YA at 8.25 p.m. on Sunday, January 9. Some of her programmes are Negro spirituals, familiar and less’ well known; others are classical, with arias from Bach and Handel oratorios, and songs by Schubert, Brahms and Monteverdi,

SONGS OF MAORILAND

"SATURDAY Night," according to a once-popular song, "is the loneliest night of the week." But listeners who tune to the YA stations at 7.30 p.m. on Saturday, January 1, will have pleasant company in Pauline Ashby. She is to present a programme, Songs of Maori-

land, with the Capital Quartet. In it she sings "Te Ei a Hau," "Ta mai," "Nou Mai Ra"

and "Mehe Manu _ Rere.’ Pauline Ashby’s interest in Maori songs dates from the time when she learned Maori singing from the late Kingi Tahiwi at Wellington’s Ngati Poneke Club. She is also a keen student of the language and found that her Maori numbers were very popular with Maori servicemen, and many others besides, when she sang them on her two visits to Korea with concert parties. Pauline, who comes from Petone, has had a long association with the NZBS in Wellington. She has broadcast as resident vocalist with a dance orchestra from the Majestic Cabaret and given many. studio recitals of popular vocal numbers. Local musical productions like The Desert Song have also had the assistance of Pauline’s contralto voice.

STORY OF DIGITALIS

R. WILLIAM WITHERING, \ who distilled the drug digitalis from foxgloves and demonstrated its use as a cure for dropsy, lived and worked in an age of witches and quacks. He was not the first man to use herbs for medicine, but he was the first to use them in a scientific way; and: he wrote the first scientific treatise written in English on

the treatment of disease. When Dr. Withering died in 1791 he was buried in Edgbaston Old

Church, Birmingham, and a carved foxglove still adorns the black marble tablet which marks his grave. Foxgloves, the "dead men’s bells" of legend, also provide the title for a half-hour BBC programme about Dr. Withering which is to go the rounds of National stations of the NZBS. Dead Men’s Bells will be broadcast from 3YC on Saturday, January 1, at 10.25 p.m.gand from 2YA at 9.30 a.m. on Sunday, January 9. oS

AUSTRALIAN SINGERS

ESCENDING from the more rarified airs of opera while they were here earlier in the year, members of the Australian National Opera recorded eleven programmes of lighter ballads and folk

broadeast by YA and YZ stations, beginning from 4YA on Thursday, January | 6, at 8.10 p.m. Those taking part in |

the series Singers of the Australian National Opera are the sopranos Tais Taras, Gladys

Mawson and Betty Prentice; the tenor | Leslie Adams; the baritone Geoffrey | Chard: and the bass-baritones Alan Light and Douglas Parnell. Tais Taras’s first programme consists of five unfamiliar Ukrainian folk songs, and her second of songs by Russian composers, including Glinka, RimskyKorsakov, Dargomijsky, and Tchaikovski. Tais Taras is a Ukrainian by birth. She studied under celebrated teachers in Kiev, and gave concert performances in the Ukraine, Russia and Germany. Leslie Adams, who begins the series, gives a recital of popular tenor solos by Edward German, Massenet and Lehar. He was already known to New Zealanders through his tour with the Italian Opera Company a few years ago. Geoffrey Chard played the ebullient Figaro in the National Opera’s presentation of Barber of Seville with immense success. He has recently been touring New Zealand with Ronald Dowd, giving recitals of excerpts from opera. Betty Prentice will be remembered for her sparkling interpretations of comedy roles-the vivacious Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and her Blonda and Musetta in II Seraglio and La Bohéme respectively. Her coloratura style is heard to advantage in a group of "bird songs," among them Dell Acqua’s "The Swallow" and "The Russian Nightingale," by Liebling. *

MAN FROM SWITZERLAND

\V HEN Call Me Madam toured New Zealand, its gallant, grey-haired hero, Cosmo Constantine, was played by René Paul. Coming from Switzerland originally, René spent considerable time in South Africa and later became an

American citizen. in the United States he appeared on Broadway, in films and on

television. With that background it’s no wonder that he feels at home in cosmo-politan-minded France-and France is the principal theme of the series of four programmes which he recorded for the NZBS while he was here. They begin on Wednesday, December 29, at 8.18 p.m., from a link of the YA stations and 3YZ. The title of the series is René Paul Sings.

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD