Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

PIANIST

O have your first lessons at the age of eight is for a pianist no unusual thing. For the Australian, William Davis (above), who was in New Zealand recently with Thanks for the Memory, it was the start of a training which turned him into a first-rate pianist-his talent

even survived 14 years in the Air Force. "It was hard to get enough practice

in playing during the war," he admits, "but I suppose the odd times I played for the boys in the islands kept. me limbered up." Mr. Davis, two of whose recorded programmes have been heard from several stations-others will be broadcast later -became a scholarship pupil of the Sydney teacher Alexander Sverjensky, when he was twenty. At that time, he recalls, he was a fellow student of

Richard Farrell, Before the war he was already doing broadcasting, concert and theatrical work, but that came to an end when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1941. Mr. Davis served in the Pacific and after the war was engaged in aerial mapping. Later, as an intelligence officer in the R.A.F., he saw service in England and Germany. When, a year or two ago, Mr. Davis found "the call of music" becoming more insistent, he decided to leave the Air Force and ‘became a civilian again in February last year, shortly before his tour of New Zealand with the Italian Opera group. Since then he has given all his time to music as an ABC accompanist and in various free-lance and theatrical activities. He has also played piano works undér Sir Bernard Heinze and Alfred Hill. "I studied chamber music under Alfred Hill," he told us, "and my love of it, and any understanding I have of it, is due to his tuition. He is a wonderful man. I would say he was primarily responsible for the development of the string players in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra." When we asked Mr, Davis how he was bearing up on this his second tour of New Zealand, he said he had seen the country only in winter, and added: "But I will say that the hospitality of the people makes up for the coldness of the climate." A BULGARIAN radio writer recently walked into the BBC publicity department in London and asked if he could watch the Goons at work on the script for one of their shows, writes (continued on next page)

J. W. Goodwin from London, As this was apparently no idle inquiry, sensational events may be foreshadowed in the Balkans, including perhaps the liberalising of some of the Communist regimes through laughter. Although overseas interest in the Goons is wide these days, the BBC warns prospective customers that such a national brand of humour may not export well. When the BBC was asked recently for an Italian translation of "I’m Walking Backward for Christmas," the baffled Italians complained that it didn’t seem to make sense. [The Goon Show has, of course, attracted much attention in New Zealand, where it is now being heard from ZB stations on Sunday evenings. |

TENOR

¥* ‘TEN broadcasts will be given by the Australian tenor William Herbert during a New Zealand tour he will make for the Federation of Chamber Music Societies. He will be heard first from YC stations on September 15, and next day in the Main National Programme.

In Wellington on October 3 he will sing the part of the Evangelist in Bach’s St.

Matthews Passion, a part tor whicn he is well known on the Continent, particularly in Holland. Born in Melbourne in 1920, William Herbert trained as a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral there, sang in Messiah when he was 18, and from then on appeared throughout Australia. Since going to England in 1937 he has sung at the Proms, broadcast regularly for the BBC, and taken part in many of the famous English music festivals, including the Edinburgh, the Three Choirs and the Welsh National Eisteddfod. Six years. ago he toured Australia for three months, and he has just finished another successful tour there. " "| JERE, then, is a picture of a whole crowd of people gathered together in the open air for a carnival," said Sir Bernard Heinze when he led the orchestra into Dvorak’s Carnaval Overture at a schools’ concert in Wellington two days before he left New Zealand. The Town Hall was full of secondary school children. The most popular item in the programme was the Walk Through the Orchestra-in which the percussion nearly stole the show with

_ variations on a nursery theme played on more than a dozen instruments. This finished with a loud bang and a cloud of smoke. Afterwards the orchestra was put together again "like a family on a Sunday afternoon." Next day Sir Bernard gave his last concert in Wellington, with members of the Robert Masters Quartet playing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. After the Sibelius Second Symphony Sir Bernard and the orchestra were given a great ovation-to which they responded with an encore.

LEADER

* NORTH ISLANDER who has spent nearly three years on the Mainland as NZBS District Engineer at Dunedin, Linden Martin (below), will go south again in December-this time really deep-when he sails with the summer Antarctic party for Scott Base. After a

season in the south and a winter at home, Mr. Martin will return to the Antarctic

at the end of next year as leader of the second year scientific party. Still only in his middle thirties, married, with three children, Mr. Martin has been with the NZBS since 1939. He was technician and later officer-in-charge with the NZBS unit with Jayforce, and from 1949 till he went to Dunedin was engineer-in-charge of the receiving station at Makara, near Wellington. He has carried out research and written for scientific papers.