Broadcast Music of Coming Week

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 47, 7 June 1929, Unnumbered Page

Broadcast Music of Coming Week

By

Bolton

Woods

*" ?Tis the deep music of the rolling world, Kindling within the strings of the waved air--Aeolian modulations." -Shelley.

An Opera With a Goat. MEYERBEER originally wrote "Dinorah" as a one-act opera, but Perrin, who was at that time director of the Opera Comique, considered that a work by the great Meyerbeer was too important not to occupy the whole evening, so the composer took the score away with him on a holiday and expanded the very weak plot into a full-sized three-act opera. Dinorah’s cottage has been destroyed by a storm, and her lover, Hoel, goes away to look for material to rebuild it. Dinorah thinks he has deserted her and becomes insane, wandering about the countryside accompanied by her pet goat. In a dreadful storm Hoel sees her crossing a ravine by a fragile bridge which breaks, and she is thrown into the water below. He plunges in and saves her. They return to the village, and find that the cold douche has restored Dinorah’s reason, and everybody (including the goat) lives happily ever after. The The famous "Shadow Song" is sung when Dinorah, seeing her own shadow, thinks it is someone with whom to dance. Miss Frances Hammerton will sing the famous "Shadow Song" at 8YA on Thursday, June 13. Nevin’s Nigger Mammy. J{THELBERT Nevin’s songs are nearly always based on some memory, and may be regarded as a record of his own emotions and: experiences in his life. "Mighty Lak’ a Rose" was composed in sight of his boyhood home, and it seems as if he had in mind happy recollections of the old coloured mammy: who cared for him in his childhood. The melody

brings more than a hint of the tenderness and humour of the words: "Mighty. Lak’ A. Rose" will be played as an accordion solo by Johnny Sylvester at 2YA on Tuesday, June 11. Gilbert’s Happiest Lyric. (G.UISEPPE’S song "Rising Early in the Morning," from the "Gondoliers" is one of the most popular .umbers in all the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It really is a patter-song, and as such it deserves to take precedence over most of them. As a descriptive song, crowded with incident and humour in every line, and with a happy moral at the end of it all, it holds a very high rank in the operas. In the humorous vein, it is probably Gilbert’s best and most typical lyric. 2YA are using a record of "Rising Early in the Morning," sung by Robert Howe, on Friday, June 14. "A Second Trombone." HE entry of the hero is always an important thing in an opera. In the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, "Mikado," the hero, ""Nanki Poo," the eldest son of the Mikado of all Japan disguised as "a second trombone," enters all in a hurry to inquire the whereabouts of "a gentle maiden named Yum-Yum." He is solemnly asked who he is, and replies in an extended solo, "A Wandering Minstrel I," with its varied moods and phrases, each change, emphasised by the music. He describes his "ballads, songs and snatches," a sentimental love song, a very English patriotic ditty, a typical English "song of the sea," and just when the

music has thoroughly roused up the hearers, it lapses into the opening serenade mood, and ends as it began. Mr. Arthur Brady will sing "A Wandering Minstrel I," at 2YA on Friday, June 14. . A Tragic End. STRADELLA was that seventeenth-cen-tury composer about whom there grew up a story (which may or may not be true) to the effect that he eloped with a lady and was followed by assassins, who were so moved by hearing some of his music that they repented of their evil intention and spared his life. However, so the story goes, Stradella was murdered later. Using this story as a foundation, Flotow wrote an opera when he wes twenty-five (in 1837). It was first brought out as a lyric drama, and then adapted as a Grand Opera, and as such was produced at Hamburg and Drury Lane. The Auckland Artillery Band, under the conductorship of Mr. Wynne J. Smith, will play selections from "Stradella" at 1YA on Wednesday, June 12. Herr and Frau Wagner, and Dog. July 1839, Wagner, with his wife (his first wife), and his huge Newfoundland dog, embarked at Paillau on a sailing vessel bound for London en route for Paris. He writes himself: "I shall never forget the voyage; it lasted three weeks and a half... The legend of the Flying Dutchman was confirmed by the sailors, and circumstances gave it a definite and characteristic colour in my Continued on page 2.

Broadcast Music (Continued from front page.) mind." The story tells of a captain who, trying to round the Cape of Good Hope in a storm, swore that he would do it if he had to sail on for ever. The Devil overheard, and took him at his word, and sent him sailing for Eternity, or until he should find a woman who would love him to the death. Senta, the Norwegian fisher-maiden, finally redeems the Dutchman by her selfsacrifice. The music of the opera is very graphic, especially in the storm scenes. The 1YA Studio Trio will play the "Sailors’ Song’ from "The Flying Dutchman" on Tuesday, June 11. The Song of Yum Yum. TN connection with the soprano Solo, "The Sun Whose Rays Are all ‘Ablaze" from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, "Mikado," Dr. Percy Buck

(King Edward professor of Music at London University), has made some pertinent allusions to the unique skill which the composer has exhibited. "The writing of a learned eight part fugue," he tells us, "is within the power of any musician who cares to waste his time in trying to do it; but ‘if he tries to reset the words "the sun whose rays are all ablaze," and then compares his music with Sullivan’s, he will have no doubts as to which is the more serious task." An English University professor who is ready to acknowledge the artistry displayed in "The Mikado," as handsomely as this, is such a rarity that the circumstance seems worthy of special notice. "The Sun Whose Rays’’ will be sung by a member of the Celeste Trio at 1YA on Friday, June 14.

An Ancient Advertisement. EIANDEL’S #"Messiah" was first performed at mid-day on Tuesday, April 13, 1742, in_the Musick Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin. The proceeds were in aid of the Mercer’s Hospital and the Infirmary, and the tickets were half a guinea each. There is an interesting note in the advertisement of the performance: "Many ladies and gentlemen who are well-wishers to this grand and noble charity request it, as a favour, that the ladies who honour this performance with their presence would be pleased to come without hoops, as it will greatly increase the charity by making room for more company." Mr. Laurie North will sing "The Trumpet Shall Sound" from the "Messiah," from 1YA on Friday, June 14.

Rhythm and Religion. THE Plantation Songs known as "spirituals" are the spontaneous. outbursts of inténse religious fervour, and had their origin chiefly in camp meetings, revivals and other religious exercises. They were never "composed," but sprang into life ready-made from the white heat of religious fervour during some protracted meeting in camp or church, as the simple utterances of wholly untutored minds, and are practically the only music in America which meets the definition of folk song. Sometimes the words are from the Scriptures, but more often they are just the crude verses made up by the Negroes themselves. H. T. Burleigh is one of the best known arrangers of this class of music, an has collected large numbers of these songs, uniting them to impressive accompaniments. Miss Irene Horniblow will sing Burleigh’s arrangements of "Steal Away," "Swing Low" and "I Stood On De River," at 4YA on Friday, June 14, Two Russian Preludes. CINE of the most celebrated of modern piano works is Rachmaninoffs "Prelude in C Sharp Minor." He was only twenty years old when he wrote it, and it served to make him known to the wide public he new enjoys. The work is one of extraordinary power, deeply emotional and thrilling. Although Rach- = maninoff gives no hint as to the

source of his inspiration, and even says that it presents no musical picture, it has been attached to the accounts of the burning of Moscow, during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. The "Prelude in G Minor" is less known, but quite as thrilling. It bings a picture of great armies passing in review. with glittering habiliments, flying banners and all the splendour of the days of Russia’s grandeur. The middle portion is composed of a beautiful melody like a folk song, and the martial music is again heard at the end. Both these Preludes will be played at 3YA on Wednesday, June 12.