Broadcast Music for Coming Week

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 51, 5 July 1929, Page 10

Broadcast Music for Coming Week

By

Bolton

Woods

"?Tis the deep music of the rolling world, Kindling within the strings of the waved airAeolian modulations." ---Shelley. = — rr og a I ene 4 aahGuntemen

: A Name to Conjure With. JX the days of our parents’ youth Strauss was a magic name, whether it were that of the Johann who saw Queen Victoria come to the throne or his more famous son Johann (18251899), who composed "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" and over four hundred other waltzes. Johann, the younger, eclipsed his father, and was the most popular musician in Vienna in tthe middle of last century.. As a youth he nearly took up banking, for his ‘father did not wish his son to go into’the musical profession, but waltzes ‘were in the blood, and would come out. Yeung Johann had been writing them since he was six, and he kept on doing so for nearly sixty years. The 1YA Orchestra will play Strauss’s "Artists’s Life" Waltz on Saturday, July 13. _The Dance of the Tumblers. >USSIAN composers, probably more » than others, have used their native folk tales as bases of operas, orchestral tone poems, and other works, on a big. scale. In "The Snow Maiden," from whieh "The Dance of the Tumblers" is taken, Rimsky-Korsakov embodies an old story which tells of the first day of spring. This is the day on which all the young folk who wish to wed come to receive the Tsar’s blessing. There are various efforts to entertain the company, and the Dance of the: Tumblers makes a merry end to the occasion. The 2YA Orchestra will play "The Dance of the Tumblers" on Friday, July 12.

A Musical Socialist. ORN in Glasgow, Hugh Robertson can be counted among those who have done most for music in. Seotland. Practically self-taught, he began as a chureh choirtrainer, and while holding this position he founded the Toynbee House Choir, a small body of singers who met wéekly at the Toynbee Men’s Social Club. He used this as the nucleus for a more ambitious choir, which ultimately became the worldfamous Glasgow Orpheus. He was one of the originators and pioneers of the Competition Festival in Seotland, and is a frequent adjudicator in both Wngland and Scotland. He has arranged many songs and vocal pieces for choirs, including "The Red Flag," and has written two plays. "Banks of Doon" and "John Grumlie," both arranged by Robertson, will be sung by the Hutt Valley Choral Society, whose concert will be relayed by 2YA on Monday, July 8. The Quaker Poet. OHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER was born at Haverhill, Massaehusetts (U.S.A.) in 1807, the exact day seems doubtful; the date usually given is December 17, but in a letter, written to Mr. Linton the poet writes: "My birthday was the very last of the year 1807." He died in 1892. On his seventieth birthday his brother poets and contemporaries offered to him a fitting and spontaneous homage, and after he died, his house at Amesbury was preserved as a memorial of one

who, through a long and blameless life, had served every noble cause with an unstinting and single-minded devotion. Miss Beryl Cooper will recite Whittier’s "Marguerite" at 4YA on Tues day, July 9. Block Chimes Berceuse. T is usual to think of Brahms as rather indifferent about the instruments which were to present his melodies, and he made arrangements of his important works. There is a story told about the "Cradle Song" being used in a rather novel way. The composer, wishing to make a present to one of his god-children, the son of another distinguished musician, had a clock specially made which chimed the lines of this song every quarter of an hour. Al. though the fortunate possessor of this clock is now himself the father of a family, it. may well be that he still treasures so unique a gift. The Melodious Hour will sing the "Cradle Song" at 8YA on Thursday, July 11.

A Rising Hope. A DISTINGUISHED former pupil of the Royal College of Music in London, where he held a Composition Scholarship, Thomas Frederick Dunhill, earned the gratitude of many of his countrymen by a series of chamber musie concerts which he ran for some years, Their special object was to bring forward music of young native composers which was in danger of being forgotten. He himself composed a large number of beautiful songs, some chamber music and a symphony. He gained the Carnegie Award in 1925 for his oneact opera, "The Wnchanted Garden," although the opera has not so far been adequately presented. _He is an author of several fine works on musical topics from. chamber musie to Gilbert and Sullivan opera. ONE of Dunhill’s part-songs, "The Captain and the Frenchman,": will be sung by the boy’s choir at the children’s choir festival under the cohductorship of Mr. Vernon Griffiths, M.A., Mus. Bach., being relayed by 3YA from Temuka on Friday, July 12. Personality Musically Portrayed. ENRTHOVEN called the eighth symphony his "Little Symphony," but only tn relation to its length compared to the seventh. It is anything but little in conception, indeed, the finale has beea spoken of as one of the supreme moments among the symphonies. First performed in Vienna on February 27, 1814,.it did not receive nearly so much applause as the seventh symphony, which was also on the programme, but Beethoven, though intensely disappointed, merely said: "That’s because it’s so much better. than the other." Grove says the work is "a portrait of the author in daily life," and this may well be so with its outbursts like temper and its humorous treatment of the various subjects..

A record by Mengelberg’s Concertgebuow Orchestra of the Allegretto Echerzando of the eighth symphony. will be used at 3YA on Sunday, July 14.. A Parlour Favourite. e i ¥F all Mendelssohn’s "‘Songs Without ™ Words," No. 34 is probably the great- © est favourite. In most editions it is called the "Spinning Song,’ but it is known to many performers and hearers, as "The Bees’ Wedding." It is of interest to know which of the titles given to the "Songs Without Words" were the invention of the author. They are those of the two "Gondola Songs," the "Duet," the "Folk Song," and the "Spring Song"; all other titles are the invention of publishers or the public, It is as the composer of "BDlijah" and the "Songs Withont Words" that Mendelssohn is known to the majority,. but the "Songs" were not always so popular. The first book of them was published by Novello's in 1882, and in 1836 only 114

copies had been sold. A record of "The Bees’ Wedding" and "Spring Song" as cinema organ solos, will be used at 4YA on Tuesday, July The First Fairy Opera.

T is interesting to recall that Weber specially wrote "Oberon" for Bngland. Kemble, the actor, had offered the musician a thousand pounds if he would write and conduct an opera in London. The composer took on the task, notwithstanding the fact that his doctor assured him that the English climate would prove his death. It was first produced, under the composer’s direction, a few weeks before his death, at the early age of thirtynine. It is a fairy-story opera, in which Weber’s gift for composing imaginative music, full of romance .and pictorial suggestion, rose to the heights of genius. There is little suggestion in the music of its being the work of a dying man, for it contains some of the most charming thoughts he ever. get down. The St. Kilda Band will. play selections from "Oberon" at 4YA on Tuesday, July 9. "Ellen McJones Aberdeen." WwW S, GILBERT’S "Bab Ballads" ap- * peared originally in the columns of "Fun," when that periodical was under the editorship of the late Tom Hood. They were subsequently reprinted in two volumes. "The Bab Ballads" The period during. which they were written extended over three or four years, and it is amusing to know. that the first of the series "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell," was originally offered to "Punch," to which paper Gilbert was at that time an occasional contributor. It was, however, declined by the then editor, on the ground that it was "too eannibalistic for his readers’ tastes." Miss Beryl will recite "Ellen McJones Aberdeen," one of the "Bab Ballads," at 4YA on Tuesday, July 9% © s--)->