Now is the Hour — for Student Songs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 808, 21 January 1955, Page 19

Now is the Hour — for Student Songs

F course," pontificated the Rather Pompous Student, "it’s only the older universities which have the traditions which give rise to student songs." "Surely students are the same all over the world. They will always find something to sing about," mildly replied David Jones, one of the BBC’s music studio managers. That was a year ago during a stimulating discussion among Cambridge undergraduates after a series of recordings of student songs. David Jones says now that he had his fingers crossed when he tried gently to deflate the Rather Pompous Student, but he was reassured when contributions of national student and folk songs arrived in London as‘a result of his inquiries among 12 Commonwealth universities. The result was a series of Christmas broadcasts, Commonwealth of Song,

which featured contributions from Auckland and Christchurch. "Maori". Marsden, of Auckland University College, introduced four Maori songs, a welcoming "Haeremai," "Toia mai te waha," the haka "Kamate, Kamate," and a farewell "Haere Ra." From the Canterbury College Madrigal Group came a hiking song, "Double | Bunking," and what David Jones calls "a rather unusual version" of "Now Is the Hour." It is probable that the harmonies were nearer to the original Maori than the version which Gracie Fields popularised in Britain after her wartime visit to the Dominion. This section of the programmes was introduced by Biil Hawkey, of C.U.C. Altogether, a pleasant broadcast which, I should think, the students enjoyed as much as did their audienceand all the result of that Rather Pompous Student who gave the BBC the idea. -J. W. GOODWIN (London)