HOLY WEEK and BASTER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 3

HOLY WEEK and BASTER

N Easter Festival-an attempt -to create a festival for the Easter season similar to the Christmas festivals of Nine Lessons and Carols-will be a new and interesting feature of Holy Week and Easter broadcasts from NZBS stations. Recorded in the Christchurch Cathedral at 7.30 p.m. on Holy Saturday, it will be broadcast from YA stations, 3YZ and 4YZ at 2.30 p.m. on Easter Day. The broadcast is an experiment in active co-operation between the NZBS and the Christchurch Cathedral authorities, said Peter Cape, who is in charge of NZBS religious broadcasts. The programme was originally arranged for the BBC by the Rev. Richard Tatlock. Commenting at the time'on the dearth of "special" ways of keeping Easter Day, he quoted the common saying that "the Churches of the West worship Jesus of Nazareth, born at Bethlehem; but the Eastern Churches worship the Risen Christ.’ While this was only half true, he said, it "explains why, in the West, Christmas, Lent and Passiontide, and anything that concerns the earthly life of Christ, can be observed with conviction; but when we come to Easter, Whitsuntide and Trinity, well-we do believe, but these supra-rational things are somehow not so easily real to us." In the Easter Festival the readings, from the Authorised Version, carry the Easter story from the visit of Mary Magdalene to the empty sepulchre through Christ’s appearances to his disciples, and end with a magnificent reading from the beginning of the First Epistle of St. Peter: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which . . . hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . ." The hymns will be the wellknown Easter hymns, but the carols will be new to New Zealand listeners. "People don’t seem to write Easter carols nowadays," said Mr Cape, "so for the service the compiler has taken from the Cowley Carol Book some of the oldest carols there are." The carols will be sung by the Christchurch Cathedral Choir (under the direction of the Master of Choristers, C. Foster Browne), and the hymns by the choir and congregation together. The readers will be Basil Clarke

(of NZBS Productions), Corbet Woodall (of 2YA) and Anthony Cowan (of Christchurch). The Bidding Prayer (from the ninth century Leofric Missal) and _ the Blessing will be read by the Bishop. of Christchurch, the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren. The broadcast will be under the direction of Peter Cape. Telling us of other Holy Week and Easter broadcasts to be heard nationally, Mr Cape said the first would be Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, presented by the Bach Choir and the Jacques Orchestra, with Dr C. Thornton Lofthouse playing the continuo and introducing the work with an illustrated talk. This will be heard from 1YC, 2YC and 4YC this Sunday (April 14). (From 3YC a local performance of the work will be heard on Wednesday, April 17. On the same day 1YC will broadcast a local performance of Bach’s St. John Passion.)

The Crucifixion, a meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer, by John Stainer, will be heard from 1YA, 2YA, 4YA and 4YZ on Wednesday, April 17, and from 3YA on Good Friday. Music tor Good Friday, a BBC programme, will be heard from YA stations and 4YZ on Good Friday. In this Amy Shuard, Gladys Ripley, Stewart Horner, Harry Barnes, William Herbert and the New Zealander Bryan Drake will be heard with the choir of Westminster Abbey, the BBC Chorus and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This will be followed by the final talk from YAs and YZs in the Lenten series, Availing Grace, in which the Rev. James Matheson, of Knox Church, Dunedin, will discuss the Church as the sphere of Grace, From YC stations and 4YZ the principal Good Friday broadcast will be the Seven Last Words from the Cross, by Haydn, played by the Griller String Quartet. Commercial stations-all ZBs and ZAs and 1XH-will broadcast The Little Dry Thorn, a Biblical drama by Gordon Daviot, with John Tate as Abraham and Neva Carr-Glynn as Sarah. Several Good Friday services will be relayed. More music by Bach-the Easter Oratorio, with soloists, the Akademie Kammerchor and the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra-will be heard from YCs on Holy Saturday. Easter Day broadcasts besides the Easter Festival will include, from YAs and 4YZ, a BBC programme, The Holy Land, impressions of a Lenten pilgrimage illustrated with recordings made in places hallowed by their links with the life of Christ; and, from YCs, an NZBS production of John Masefield’s mystery play, Easter, set to music by Martin Shaw, This will be presented by an impressive cast of soloists, three speaking voices from the Livesey-Jeans company, and the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra, augmented with woodwind, brass and percussion. Two other Easter Day broadcasts of interest are, from 1YC and 2YC, Fhe Heart of the Matter, a ptogramme of verse by Dame Edith Sitwell, with music by Benjamin Britten, spoken, sung and played by Dame Edith Sitwell, Peter Pears, Dennis Brain and Benjamin Britten; and, from 3YC and 4YC, Organ and Voices, a recital of music for Easter from Beater