FROM TAKAHE TO RICHARD FARRELL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 939, 9 August 1957, Page 8

FROM TAKAHE TO RICHARD FARRELL

NEw ZEALAND certainly provides ‘" the BBC. with variety-and not ‘variety ha-ha, as Noel Coward might have phrased it. In recent weeks British listeners and viewers have had the ‘varied attractions of what was billed as "the takahe, a nearly extinct bird of New Zealand," the pianist Richard Far‘rell, the economist F. W. Holmes, from Victoria University College, and the baritone Denis Dowling. The takahe made its bow in a television series in which Peter Scott, who visited the Dominion at the beginning of the year, introduced viewers to faraway places with strange-sounding names and even stranger creatures, Also on TV, Richard Farrell was the soloist in a Sunday afternoon concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra. "At 30 he is regarded by critics as an artist of exceptional talent,’ stated the BBC programme details sent to all United Kingdom newspapers, The only musician in his Secale, Richard Farrell gave his first broadcast at the age of four, and first concert performance at seven. When he was not much older he composed a lament on the death of Archbishop Redwood. His later musical training was in Australia and the United States,

The senior lecturer in economics at Wellington took part in a discussion on "Farmers on the Free Trade Area," which was broadcast twice on the Third Programme. Others taking part were a former. president of the Agricultural Economics Society and a Dane, who is head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Nottingham University. While putting the official New Zealand attitude to the European Common Market plan, Mr Holmes said that he did not completely share it. Opera the Hard Way Denis Dowling, the Dominion-born singer who has been acclaimed in leading roles at Sadler’s Wells and BBC operas, took the title part in Blind Raftery, a new opera commissioned by BBC television and based on Donn Byrne’s romantic novel. His singing was approved by leading musical critics, who also enjoyed the tuneful music, so much easier to sing than many modern operas. The music was composed the hard way by Joan Trimble, well known in Britain a8 a pianist, but less well known as the busy wife of a London doctor. With three children and a time-taking extra job as her husband’s receptionist and telephonist, she had to admit "‘it

was a slog." A sound recording of the opera is being made for overseas broadcasting services.

J. W.

GOODWIN

( London )