PERSONALITIES of the week

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 52, 5 July 1935, Page 10

PERSONALITIES

of the week

WANDA THE WAG WANDA LANDOWSKA is not -only one of the greatest players the harpsichord has ever had~-she is accepted as an authority on all its history and tradition, is a musicologist and specialist in the literature, and has an unquenchable humour. She. tells humorous stories of her experiences in an inimitable manner, one of which concerns 2 concert at which she played works of, consummate beauty by Bach, Handel, Purcell and Frescobaldi, when a brave provincial composer who afterwards sent her his compositions~and what compositions! --went up to congratulate her. He seemed sincerely moved. "How beautiful it is, how heautiful it is," he repeated. ‘"Wouldn’t you really say, Madam, that those men had forseen us?" Madame’s reply is not on record. TICKET-TAKER TO STAR 'A LEXANDER KIPNIS, baritone, has chad a career widely different from that of the ordinary artist. Born in dire poverty in Russia, it was not until the age of 16 that he ever saw or heard a piano. And then music

took possession of his soul. After some time he obtained employment with a small operatic company, but apparently in any capacity other than that of singer-for-he was in turn a tickettaker, a wardrobe man, wig man and actor. It was long before the management entrusted him with a singing part. Later he joined the conservatoire in Warsaw and thence passed on to Berlin to study under Grensebach for . four years. .On the outbreak of war Kipnis was arrested, but he has since become a great favourite with Berlin audiences lar, ACTOR-COMPOSER. T is a great thrill to find Nat. D. Ayer, the composer, on the records in some of his successes of -the last twenty-one years... Nat. originally came into prominence by his associa-

tion with J. W. Bratton in the score of "The Newly-Weds and Their Baby," which made a hit in 1909. He first became known in England by his composition of several popular songs. among which may be noted ‘‘'You’re My Baby" and "Oh! You Beautiful Doll," He contributed numbers to the scores of several revues from 1914 onwards, among which was "So Long, Lucy." Ayer composed "The Bing Boys Are Here" and other revues in 1916, and "The Bing Boys on Broadway’: two years later. He is a successful actor. also, and has appeared in a number of his own works, POET-PLAYWRIGHT. BoRN at Leytonstone, Essex, just fifty-tliree years ago, John Drinkwater has achieved three-fold success as dramatic author, actor and poet. Following his education at the Oxford High School, he had twelve years in the world of insurance before he accepted the greatest risk of his life and joined forces with Sir Barry Jackson, the founder and director of the Birmingham Repertory Company, who produced Drinkwater’s play "Abraham Lincoln" in 1919. The’ poet Was co-founder of the Pilgrim Players in 1907, which subsequently became the Birmingham Repertory Players. ‘In 1907 he made his first appearance on the stage, as Charity in "The Interlude of Youth." John Drinkwater has written critical studies of both

Morris and Swinburne, also poems, Plays, essays, etc. His recreation is country life. A SPANISH TENOR ORN at Zaragoza in Spain, Miguel Fleta, the operatic tenor, is now / 88 years old. His musical education; was received in his native country and Italy. He made his debut at 22-at the Verdi Theatre, Trieste, as. Pye in the opera "Francesca Da Rimi. by Zandonai, under the direction the composer. Afterwards he sang _ during the same season in "Aida." Dating from that time his .-career has brought him the applause of many cities. At the Real Theatre, Madrid, he gave his whole repertoire with his usual great success, and was chosen by' Zandonai, the Italian composer, to ereate the role of Romeo in his new "opera "Romeo and Juliet" (Giulietta ¢ Romeo), in which he achieved-an outstanding success. His debut at the early age of 25, in "Tosca," at the Metropolitan, New York was a redletter event. THIRTY YEARS’ SERVICE HEN Theodore Thomas passed into the veid at the beginning of 1905, his life’s work well under way, but far from completion, he left a heritage of stunning magnitude to Frederick Stock, his successor as conductor: of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. For Thomas was not only idolised, but by the authority of his personality and position, enabled him to resort on occa~ sion to: dictatory measures. Stock, on tbe other hand, had just risen from the rank of a viola player to that of assistant corductor, and now saw himself confronted with a problem. which might have daunted even. a man of greater practical experience and equal determination. How well Stock proved equal to his task is reflected in his masterfu]. handling of the orchestra, the records of which prove a delight to many radio listeners and gramo- } philes. THE CLASSIC "HAMLET" y "TF Goethe or Coleridge had seen Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson in the role of ‘Hamlet,’ they wouldn’t have written criticisms on the play," says Hesketh Pearson, "they would simply have said, ‘Go and see Forbes-Robert-son,’ People who have been lucky enough to see him, but who still prefer the romantic ‘tours de force’ and stage pauses of other actors, should continue or commence to patronise melodrama and musical comedy. It is just posShakespeare’s plays, the majority of which are romantic melodramas or poetic musical comedies, but they certainly can’t appreciate ‘Hamlet’ They have still to be modernised, and still ; sible they may appreciate the rest of &

WHAT NAME, _ PLEASE ? HE names given : below are those of men and women who are featured in the coming programmes from the New Zealand national stations or of radio per. formers who have been featured in the news during the week On these pages are paragraphs re lating to the activities of the persons inentioned in this column MIGUEL FLETA, tenor, 2YA Sunday, July 7. NAT. D. AYER, actor-compos-er, TYA, Tuesday, July 9. ALEXANDER BRAILOWSKY, vianist, 3YA, Wednesday, July 10. FREDERICK STOCK, conductor, Chicago Symphony Orches‘ra, 3YA, Wednesday, July 10. SIR JOHN FORBES-ROBERT-SON, actor in Shakespearean recital, 4YA, Sunday, July 7. JOHN DRINKWATER, playwright, actor and poet, reading his own poems, 1YA, Monday, luly 8. WANDA LANDOWSKA, harpchordist, 1YA, Sunday, July 7, J July 13. ALEXANDER KIPNIS, bass, . ‘YA, Sunday, July 7. se.

to get a soul. It was the only Shakespearean performance one could see twenty times (and twice in one day), yet wish to go on seeing it twenty times twenty, A YOUNG IMPRESSIONIST. N the banks of the Dnieper, in the neighbourhood of Kiev, a little boy of four, who was born on February 16, 1896, used to love to watch the numerous boats going up and down the river, amusing himself with the slightest details and attentive to the different noises of the traffic and the whistling of the engines. On his return home, the child would run to the piano ani astonish his father by musically expressing his impressions, not fearing to

realise the discordant sounds and the polytonic effects realised by his impressionable brain. Without annoying

him to play fastidious exercises, his father, a reputed professor of musie, understood that his son had an excep tional gift, and that it was necessary

to guide, but not to thwart him. He applied himself not to spoil the beautiful sounds which pleased this remarkable nature; which, with prodigious rapidity, was destined to become a great artist, who is now applauded by the whole wide world of music. The little boy’s name, Alexander Brailowsky, stands to-day among those of the great masters of the keyboard, thanks to a commonsense parent, opportunities, and the devoted interest of his great teacher, Leschetizky.