PERSONALITIES of the week

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 19, 16 November 1934, Page 8

PERSONALITIES

of the week

LEAVING XMAS EVE. UE to leave New Zealand on Xmas Live, on his return to England, the Reverend Herbert Leggate has done a very great deal toward establishing the Toe H movement in Wellington. He was originally an emissary from the 'Toe H organisation in London, conducting a pastoral tour of New Zealand, but lately he has taken up his headquarters in Wellington. One of the stalwarts of the movement in England, he has already endeared himself to Toc H men on this side of the world. Mr. Leggate is at present in Christchurch, making a southern tour prior to his departure overseas "BOB’-OF 4YA AFTER four years of school teaching © in Otago Mr. R. McKenzie drifted into journalism, and to-day he edits the

cable page of the "Otago Daily Times," Dunedin’s morning paper. Recognised as an authority on. all branches of sport, he has conducted special columus on subjects that are embraced in that wide field, and he holds executive positions on several sporting bodies, including the secretaryship of the Otago . Rugby Referees’ Association. To listeners, however, he is probably best known as 4YA’s_ sporting announcer, and on Saturday afternoons during the winter he can be heard telling the world what is happening at Carisbrook, the Mecca of Dunedin’s Rugby enthusiasts. Able to think in split seconds, Bob is not only always right up with the play, but on occasions even anticipates it. SAVED! -) USSID MATTHEWS, the charming ‘Star of the. successful "BDvergreen" | and "The Good Compahions," has been saved for British talkies. A battle royal has been going on for her services between the Gaumont-British film corporation and several important American companies. Her present contract in London expires in a day or two, but latest advice states that Miss Matthews has now concluded an agreement with the directors of Gaumont-British to renew her contract with the company for a further three years at the very large figure of £50,000 for that period. She will not make more than three films a-year during that time, and pro- © bably only two. GERMAN "TERTIS." LTHOUGH Paul Hindemith is still on the right side of forty, he is counted as one of thé outstanding figures in the German music of to-day. He displayed remarkable gifts at an early age, and as q boy, taught himself the violin so successfully that he played in ali manner of orchestras, picture

houses, operetta theatres, and so forth, before studying in earnest, He did that later to such good purpose that at the age of 20 he was leader of the Frankfort Opera Orchestra. He began to compose, too, at a very early age, and his first pieces were mainly: written for performance in the family circle or at gatherings of friends, The viola is now his chosen instrument, and he may be described as the "Tertis" of Germany. A YORKSHIREMAN KARL ATKINSON couldn’t belong to any other part of the world but Yorkshire, He is a Yorkshireman to his fingertips and the popular president of the Yorkshire Society in Wellington. Mr, Atkinson has charge of the gramophone library at the Broadcasting Board’s head office, and his knowledge of records and music generally is amazing. Since he was a small boy, listening to band concerts in his yative Bradford. he has had a love of music, and he was the founder, during his residence in the north, of the Auckland Gramophone Society. His hobby for years past haa been musicology, therefore the present upward trend of the musical tastes of the silent majority of radio listeners has an enthusiastic co-operator in the person of the man who looks after the records. .

POPULAR PADRE. 'PHDRE is no keener worker ip the. South Island for the Toc H movement than the Reverend O. Williams, chaplain at Christ’s College, Christchurch. Mr. Williams was the founder-. padre of Toc H in New Zealand and the . inaugurator of the movement when Padre P. B. (Tubby) Clayton first came to the Dominion with "Rogerum," the Toc H song. It is to Mr. Williams’s efforts that the existence of "The Brark," the Toe H home in Ghristchurch, is due, and it is no exaggeration to say that the Christchurch padre is the most popular man in the movement in New Zealand to-day. Mr. Williams was a@ major during the war and took Orders after the armistice was signed. "BEETHOVEN SPEAKING." N a veritable fury of righteous indignation, the critic of the. "London Times" once criticized Ignaz Friedman’s playing of the Beethoven "G Major Concerto" under Weingartner, because he didn’t like the cadenza at all at all. "Something," he gasped, "must be done to curb the moderp virtuoso’s disregard in the matter 10£ ¢adenzas. Scarce one that is heard nowadays is tolerable, and in such a": programme as this (all Beethoven), this bad taste becom¢s glaring." The joke is that the cadenza was Beethoven’s own. A Dutch critic fell in the same way twenty years ago. Busoni was the solo-

ist, and after reading the criticism he waited until midnight, and on the stroke of twelve he rang up the critic: -‘"Hello! is that Mr. Blank? This is Mr. Beethoven, I wrote that cadenza." an fi

B.B.C. FOR 10 YEARS. : STANFORD. ROBINSON may be said to have been cradled in the lap of Orpheus. Born in Yorkshire, the sou of a well-known Leeds organist, he played the piano from his fifth year and later began to teach himself. . Whilst still at school he decided to make music his career and organised an amateur orchestra in order to gain experience in conducting. Mr. Robinson joined the musical staff ofthe B.B.C. early in 1924 and in the same year was made responsible for the organisation and trainiag of the B.B.C. National Chorus. a body of 250 singers selected from ten times that number of applicants. He also conducts the B.B.C. Wireless Singers and the 3B.B.C. Theatre Orchestra, which is the enyy of every broadcast station in the world. LAST WORD. Fall the lieder singers of the present day, Elena Gerhardt is surely the | greatest. Her parents were enthusiastic amateur musicians and little wouder their daughter entered the Leipzig: Conservatoire with the fixed determinution to become a great singer. She soon found that she had remarkable talent in the interpretatiog of the classic songs of Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Hugo Wolf and others. Arthur Nilkisch, the famous conductor, was so.enthusiastic about her genius that he played ber piano accompaniments at her first con‘cert. She made her first debut in Bngland at Queen’s Hall in June, 1926, and were we never to hear her in the flesh. we would have in her glorious records sufficient warrant for describing her as the last word in lieder singing.

HIS OWN EXPONENT. J OBN IRELAND, himself a pianist »f note, frequently appears as the exponent of his own music. Warly in his career he was recognised as a composer of rare and individual qualities, but as he burnt all the music he wrote before 1908, he has been his own sternest cricic also. Known chiefly to the man-in-the-‘street as responsible for his song ‘‘Sea Fever," which, though excellent in its

ballad manner, in no way represents him as a composer. He has written much splendid orchestral and chamber musie, and vocal works, including tie notable song-cycle "The Shropshire Lad." The critical faculty no doubt is derived from his late father, who was ouce editor of "The Manchester Examiner," , "PARISHLESS PARSON." D®SCRIBING herself as a "parishless parson in petticoats," Margareh Macpherson, well-known journalist and radio speaker, says: "I like to preach at people. Perhaps it, is because four generations of my family have been schoolmasters. It is a typical case

of the sins of the fathers!" Since she returned to New Zealand from London lash year, Mrs. Macpherson. has played the part of lecturer on many occasions, haying spoken from such‘diverse plat-. forms as the New Zealand Legion, the Theosophieal Society, the Douglas Gredit Association, : the Methodist Church, the Friends of the Soviet Union, the League of Mothers, and the Council. Against War. During her stay in London last year, she was offered the job of "ghost" for society people who like to see their names in print, but cannot write their own articles, The pay suggested was good, but, says Margaret Macpherson, "the whole project was based on mendacity and snobbery, so I turned it down." MARRIED A SAVAGE. "THE West of-Wngland has given us . many fine singers, of whom that splendid baritone, Percy Heming, F.R.A.M., isa good example. Born in Bristol, Percy as a boy sang in the school choir of the Bristol grammar school and in the Bristol Madrigal Club. When his voice broke he joined the Ohoral Society of that city. Friends induced Him to seriously consider taking up musie as a profession, and he has no cause to regret following their counsel, Tuition at the Royal Academy in London and.under Frau Pro» fessor Grosse, and the late Sir George Henschel, made-him the fine vocalist he now is. While at the R,A\M., he met his present wife, a daughter of Canon Savage, of the Isle of Man Mr Heming’s successful career on the opera stage and concert platform is a modern musical romance,