Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 948, 11 October 1957, Page 20

Open Microphone

PP PO NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

HISTORIC ACCORDION

A BATTERED old piano accordion that he has had for a long time is what F. A. Jones uses to help him compose his popular songs, which have been represented in New Zealanders Wrote These. It’s an instrument with a history. During the war years Mr Jones served in the Merchant Navy, and his ship, Komata, was taken by a

German raider masquerading as the Tokyo Maru. It was then that the accordion really

proved its worth. Life on board the German raider was not easy for the 130 prisoners crammed into her hold, but a nightly concert went a long way towards making things more bearable. ' The piano accordion and a violin. be-

longing to one of the Rangitane’s crew were the only musical instfuments on board, but with the aid of the "Rangitane Hotspots," a professional entertainment group, a high standard was reached. The performance was always started in the early evening while it was still light. enough for the German. sailors to watch through the hatch. Those who could speak English would call down re-quests-"‘Show Me the Way to Go Home" seemed to be their favouriteand when they were particularly pleased they would throw down cigarettes, tobacco and matches. "My piano accordion was literally worth its weight in cigarettes,’ says Mr Jones fondly. All the donations were appropriated by the bo’sun of the Rarigitane, who, with the

aid of two stewards, dispensed cigarettes. and food from behind a counter they rigged up. The bo’sun also organised the concerts, offering performers two cigarettes for each item. Limericks about the food (mainly rice-which thymes with "lice’) were particularly popular. Today Mr Jones lives in Kawakawa, where he is in business as a house painter. In his own words he has composed "quite a few" songs, and he regards "It’s All Over Now" as his best effort to date. Ps

\JEVER. again will I faise a superior eye--brow as singers make yet another positively last appearance (writes J. W.. Goodwin from London). Kirsten Flagstad, who made _ one farewell at Covent Gardent nearly 10 years ago and another at the Festival Hall some years later, descended from Valhalla the other night to make positively her first appearance at :a BBC Prom _ Concert. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the death of her countryman Grieg. Despite tumultuous applause as Sir. Malcolm _ Sargent led her on, my heart sank a little. Norwegian peasant costume-white shawl over the head, white sleeves, and full black dress — together with a tendency’ to

waddle, made her look like a penguin in negative. Trying to be charitable, one saw not the operatic prima donna of yesteryear, but Juliet’s Nurse. Then she sang and this illusion was swept away. Grieg’s pretty songs became more than life size with a transfusion of her still glorious voice. One is now more conscious of her artistry. There is a slight edginess about some top notes, but she has that same apparently limitless supply of breath, Few singers of any age, let alone in their 60’s, can surpass her in that. The pianist in the Concerto in A Minor was the Norwegian, Robert Riefling. * }-OR all we know, ‘this story may be as old as the hills, but we liked it when we read it in a recent airmail letter from Arthur Jacobs to the ABC. Larry Adler, it seems, was about to meet ‘Khachaturian in London, but before the introduction the interpreter warned the harmonica virtuoso: "Don’t mention that Sabre Dance." Apparently Khachaturian was tired of being asked about it. At the Soviet composer’s request, Adler demonstrated-how to play a soft note, a loud note, a scale, a crescendo on a single note. Then Khachaturian said: "I suppose you don’t happen to know my Sabre Dance?" Adler not only knew it but played it right away, with the composer at the piano. When they were through Khachaturian jumped up, embraced Adler and exclaimed: "When we mark Russian music students in their exams the highest mark we give is five. Five is the maximum. You get five and a half!"

RADIO CLASS

F you go on the air once a week with about 30 children in an ordinary suburban classroom you are sure to run up against occasional umrehearsed "incidents," but to Keith Newson they seem just part of a week’s work. Explaining to us that this year the Thursday sing-

ing class in Broadcasts to Schools is heard from a _ class-

room at Heaton Intermediate School, Christchurch, instead of from a studio at 3YA, he recalled one or two of the incidents that had threatened to upset the broadcasts. "During one broadcast," he said, "I was playing the piano accompaniment while the class was singing, when the wooden panel on the piano between the pedals and the keyboard fell out on to my legs." Mr Newson went on playing while the technician removed the panel. Another day when the usual notice saying that the broadcast was on hadn’t been hung on the door, it suddenly opened with a creak which was heard over the air, and a boy walked in. "He stopped short, gazed around bewildered at the microphones, technicians and radio class, and just stood there,’ said Mr Newson. "While I went on playing with my right hand, I waved him away with my left and made faces at him to go out. At last he did, with more creaking of the door." Mr Newson said that the Headmaster at Heaton Intermediate, Mr W. Grant, had cheerfully agreed to the slight disorganisation of the school routine which inevitably occurs when a broadcast is on. For instance, on broadcast days the electrically controlled hooter which takes the place of a school bell at Heaton Street cannot be sounded as it would go on the air. Nevertheless, Mr Newson feels it is a good thing for listening teachers and children that the broadcasts come from a_ schoolroom. "The children in the radio class are

as lively as any other boys and girls before and after the broadcasts," he said, "but while we are on the air they are quiet and most attentive. Most of the children play instruments as well as sing. More than 90,000 children throughout New Zealand use the singing lesson broadcasts, and I must say it’s very sobering to realise that so many people are depending on the lessons, It’s certainly a big class to teach -the biggest I’ve ever had!-but the class and I enjoy it." Keith Newson is not, of course, a newcomer to Broadcasts to Schools, for in recent years he has shared "Rhythm for Juniors" with Jean Hay. His wider broadcasting experience goes back 30 years or more to his boyhood, when as a violinist he joined his brothers, pianist Noel and cellist Geoffrey, in one of the first instrumental trios to broadcast from 3YA. "The ‘firsts,’" he recalls, "were photographed for 3YA’s album of artists which eventually became so dated that it was known as the Rogues’ Gallery." Noel Newson was, of course, one of New Zealand’s finest pianists when he died in 1944. Geoffrey Newson, now of NZBS Head Office Programmes, is a well-known double-bass player in the Capital. A student of the violin when he was seven, and later of the piano, Keith Newson went to school in Christchurch and later to the Teachers’ College there and to Canterbury University College, where he graduated B.A. and Mus.Bac. His teachers have included Dr Vernon Griffiths and Ernest Jenner,- whom he succeeded three years ago as Lecturer in Music at Christchurch Teachers’ College. Mr Newson has studied and taught in Europe and England and last year was chosen to represent the Education Department at a Unesco seminar on music in education at Melbourne. His musical activities in Christchurch

as conductor, performer and lecturer have been extremely varied, and throughout his working life he has taken a keen interest in music in schools. He has been an orchestral player for 25 years and a choral singer for 20 years. A recent musical occasion that Christchurch people will remember well was the open-air concert by Christchurch choirs and the Municipal Band which he conducted in Hagley Park in February as part of the Floral Festival. Mr Newson likes to relax over a good detective story. As for gardening, he admitted he was almost as good at dodging it as his brother Geoffrey, who once said that one of his interests was "avoiding. anything to do with gardening all the year round." "However," Keith Newson admitted, "I have to do a certain amount to keep my section in order,"