PERSONALITIES of the week

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 30, 1 February 1935, Page 8

PERSONALITIES

of the week

"OUR BILL " KF H. GRISEWOOD, universally ° Known as "Freddy," was a singer before he became famous as a B.B.C. announcer. He sang the solo part in Henschel’s "Requiem" at the first per- | formance in England, at Queen’s Hail in 1913, Then the war intervened, and took up all his energies until, after being knocked out on the: Somme, he was invalided out in 1917, and retire:l to Oxfordshire to farm. He kept up his singing and he first broadcast in 1925. He joined the B.B.C. as an announcer in July, 1929, and has broadcast in programmes for every single department. Famous as "Our Bill," the Oxfordshire rustic, with Stamford Robinson, he devised "Nuts and Wine,* and other famous programmes. This

splendid musical show delighted lis- _ teners all over the Dominion when the first series of B.B.C. programmes was released. . YOUTHFUL ALBERT. (THE youthful Albert Sandler (he was born in 1906) has long been one of the most, popular artists on the lighter _ side of broadcast music. He began his musical career at the-.age. of twelve, playing in a cinema orchestra every _ évening after leaving school. He won # scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and, after two years’ study, became leader of various of ‘the orchestras employed by Messrs. Lyons. He continued to study with-the late Hans Wessely, and later with Kalman Ronay, nephew of Professor Auer. He fizst ‘came into prominence as a broadcaster when he took over control of the orchestra at the Grand Theatre, Hastbourne, from which he was the first violiniss to broadcast. In 1928 he left Dasibourne for the Park Lane Hotel. ALEC BECOMES DICK. At the age of twenty a tenor named Alexander Crooks was soloist at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian ‘Church, New York. To-day he is Richard Crooks, American tenor, known on both sides of the Atlantic. He is less important to himself now. Then he knew he way good. To-day he hopes he is, Alexander’ was too ponderous a name tu affix to Crooks, A telephone book upun consultation supplied a more suitable Christian name. Hence the Richard! . The name suits him. He is a modern crusader. A twentieth century prototype of the lion-hearted Richard of sons and story. Six feet two, black-haired, keen-eyed, athletic. Now a. marries man, he adores his wife and children (the pigeon-pair so often longed for). His wife was the girl who sat next to him at school and played his accompaniment when he sang at.the prizegiving. "REVELLERS" IN PARIS. O sight is more interesting than the one of a huge French audience watching and listening to that amazing quintet of music makers with whom all Dominion listeners are now familiar-the Revellers. It is as fascinating to watch the listeners as the performers. -All the songs are, of course, in English, none the less the French seemed to gather them al} in, laughed- and applauded at the right places. No doubt most of this apprecjation igs due to "La voix de son maitre," as the legend runs in France beneath the pictures of the little fox terrier and the gramophone horn. Year after year this group consisting of James Melton, Lewis James, Blliott Shaw, Wilfred Glenn and Frank Black -four fine voices suported by a brilliant pianist, seem to move from success to success.

QUICK STUDY. OHN .BARBIROLLI’S rapidity in absorbing model complex scores was revealed in 1927 in a performauce of Digar’s.."Second Symphony" by the } London Symphony Orchestra. Sir Tho- | mas Beecham, who was advertised to conduct, had fallen ill. Barbirolli step~ ped into the breach, learned the syitphony in three days, and won @ congratulatory letter from Elgar on the performance. The exclusive gramophone recording sessions of the work were entrusted to him, and the symphony and its performance made sucid an impression that invitations to him and his orchestra came from Turin ana Milan. The uncanny conducting genius of this 35-year-old son of an Italian father and a Frénch mother, has been productive of a brilliant series of recordings. PICCOLO PIPING. MOUSstican acrobatics on such a tiny instrument as the piccolo calls for a nimble set of fingers, and for years’ Hal ©. McLennan has possessed a piccolo technique which few New Zealanders have achieved. His connection with the Auckland Municipal Band has brought him before a large public, and the contrast of a piping piccolo in between two heavy brass numbers adds somewhat to the in- | Bn ‘\

terest of the fine performances put up by the band, The piccolo, too, is one of the few musical instruments which have been made the subject of a song -dance tempo, of course, "Piccolo Pete" had a good run of popularity, like the pieces about ukuleles, guitars or banjos. But could you imagine even an American song-writer turning out a dance number about an oboe, a mouth-organ, a balalaika or a sousaphone? UNFORGETTABLE GIANNINI AN imposing figure of the strictly Latin type, garbed in a red velvet gown with a long train, Dusolina Giannini makes q striking and unforgettable picture. With poise, dignity, in- . telligence and a truly magnificent soprano voice, she possesses all those elements of the truly great artist. Born in Philadelphia, she was taught by her father, Ferrucis Giannini, a fine Italian singer. With her sister, Hupheme ~ —

ia, they formed a juvenile class of two pupils, and Dusolina made her debut at twelve in her father’s theatre in the Quaker City. ‘There she sang-arias and spoke recitations in the repertoire of 36 operas. She went for lessons to Sembrich when she was seventeen, and since then she has become a world figure in operatic circles. CHAUVE-SOURIS. HE genius of the Chauve-Souris is, of course, Nikita Balieff, producer and. compere, whose smile-as wide as a slice of melon-and genially inaccurate version of the English language captured London on the Russians’ first visit to England some years ago. The Russian revolution scattered the artists of the old regime far and wide.

It gave Hurope and America possession of the Diaghilev Ballet, Pavlova, the various Cossack choirs and. the Balalaika Orchestras, Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theatre, the Blue Bird. Players, Chaliapine, and last, but not least, the Chauve-Souris, or Bat Theatre, of Moscow, whose songs, (lances and playlets are performed with child-like simplicity and charm. MAORIS ON THE MAP. HE two singers who put Maoris on the musical map of the world are still going strong. Deane Waretini and Ana Hato records have travelled all cver the world, and perhaps the only regrettable feature about the business has been. that their fine voices have been followed on other recordings by a lot of mediocre choir work and an. occasional solo or duet not .up to the original standard, One remembers being in Rotorua in 1929 when about 800 American tourists spent a day or so there. After being treated to Waretini and Hato at a concert, the visitors next day invaded every gramophone shop in the town, and there was practically nothing else played all day except the records of these two, In three days one shop sold nearly 200 of their records and another reached about the saime figure. Hven then. many of. the Americans, after the town was right out of stock, left their orders for forwarding new stocks back to the States! ohare