In the Wake of the Week's Broadcasts

Radio Record, 22 April 1938, Page 6

In the Wake of the

Week's Broadcasts

THIS SPOILS THE GOOD EFFECT.

It is a sad fact, known to every newspaper man, that one slip will attract more attention from his readers than one hundred noble efforts at good writing. And it is precisely the same with radio work. When

Station 2ZB announced that Mr. Montagu) Norman, chairman of the

Bank of England, would speak over the air, and half an hour later told listeners that if was not Mr. Norman, but a Sir Montague Burton who had spoken, much value was straightway lost from a good effort to give listeners a live programme. It is an unhappy but amusing trait in mankind that it gives full marks fyr the defects of its

friends and half marks for their virtues. Sh

THE PASSING OFA YVOLGA BOATMAN.

v So Chaliapin is dead! On _ the evening the sad news was received by cable from Paris, 2YA paid a dignified tribute to the great Russian basso during its news session, underlining the brief recorded

sketch of his career by playing his recording of Jar-

laam’s song, "In the Town of Kazan," from Moussorgsky’s opera, "Boris Godounoy." Kazan, incidentally, was his birthplace, Chaliapin'’s gorgeous voice is perpetuated in his superb recordings, and

generatious as yet unborn will hear him in his native operas and folk songs, one especially, "The Song of the Volga Boatmen." It was a rare experience to hear this song sung by one who, years ago, was actually a Volga boatman. In a minor capacity, Chaliapin obtained employment with the local opera company, but it was so unremunerative that he was forced to increase his earnings by acting as porter in the railway station and belping unload the barges along the wharves of the Volga. This humble interlude in his career, however, served to enhance the brilliance of a certain jewel in the crown of his later success, No one has, or ever will, sing the "Song of the Volga Boatmen" as

he did. It was a far cry from those days of penury to the recent past. when he was wont to inhabit hotel suites full of Easter tulips and command fees that, in his youth, would seem boundless wealth. Chaliapin was a great singer, an incomparable actor, the master of make-up, a fine thinker, and an able writer. For him to pass away at the by no means advanced age of 65 is a great loss to the world of music.

FORTUNATELY iT WAS SHORT.

"Queer Street,". by" John Donald Kelly, was the title of the play presented from 4YA studios last Monday night. The production this time was in the hands of Gorden Niven, and was

another of the sketchy type of plays which have been 4YA’s main-

stay in this class of entertainment recently. The story was concerned with a successful burglar whose daughter became most inconsiderately engaged to a policeman. Father was not going to let thig stop his nocturnal activities, and he carried on. Some amusement was introduced when the burglar and his pal outlined to the policeman a plan of their activities on a forthcoming "job," only they converted the plan into a plumbing work. On the night in question the burglars were disturbed by the police but the one who caught it in the neck was the daughter’s policeman. Forstop me if you guess the rest-he was hut another burglar and he was using the brains of the girl’s father to put him on the good things. It wasn’t a particularly bright play by any means, and the manner in which the players handled it did not make it any the brighter. Fortunately it lasted only 15 minutes. at

DON’T OVERTAX OUR POOR EARS.

1 am quite sure it is not good tactics in a radio talk to speak a phrase like "the penitent king’s hesitant immobility." There would be nothing wrong with it in written work, but in spoken

work it is too much for the average human ear to ask the average human

brain to cope with, before the next words follow hot on its tracks. This is my main complaint against an otherwise first-rate talk in the NBS "Whirligig of Time" talk on "The French Revolution,’ by David Hall. I liked a lot of things about this talk. I liked the way he revived those old corpses by pleasantly referring to them in good, straightforward inodern terms. It cheered me when he spoke of poor, thick-headed Louis the Sixteenth, and when he spoke of Louis the Fourteenth as a capable megalomaniac I was able to find modern parallels quite easily. Yes, Mr. Hall, I liked your talk, though you rather lost the thread of the narrative toward the end and became a bit diffuse; but I do think you should remember you are not writing a good essay. You are giving a talk. whee

RHYTHM IS IN HIS FINGERS.

Gradually, a young Christchurch pianist. Mr. Sefton Daly, a devout disciple of rhthm, has been improving his technique. I heard him four or five years ago; I heard him again more re-

cently at a social gathering, holding a party crowd spellbound. Then, the other night froin

3YA, he gave listeners a number of his own compositions. This improvement was remarkable. Mr Daly, althongh not possessing the brilliance of the late Raie da Costa-he rarely attempts particularly rapid work, preferring a slower melodie rhythm-proved himself, to my mind, a worthy contemporary of

some of the great English and American rhythm exponents, His work was clean, excellently modulated and full of expression. This was his last broadcast before leaving for Australia. He has a visit to England in view.

THEY CAN'T TELL US WHY.

Slow and deliberate, the talk on Bar-celona-chief manufacturing centre of Spain and the target of Franco’s Italian and German-manufactured bombs -by the Rev. W. S. Rollings. from 2VA

last week, was well worth the attention of every listener with more interest

in International affairs than a desire to know the latest in "swing’ from the United States. He told listeners the facts about Barcelona and its Catalan inhabitants in such a soft smooth way ‘that these same hard facts became easily digested mental food. It wag easy to learn from him that Barcelona had one third of the maritime trade of Spain on its quays, that the city had a population equal to that of all New Zealand and that the Catalans were mainly "‘workers" fiercely resentful of Fascist rule. Why was it so easy? ‘That is a secret that even good radio talkers can’t themselves tell you. It just happens that it is so. og

TREY JUST WON'T LET US FORGET IT !

Comparable with the "Yes, We Have No Bananas" craze and the more recent musical epidemic which made the music go round and around, is the present popularity of the number "You Will Remember,"

from the film "Maytime.’ Sung first with gusto and feel-

ing by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, it has since been repeated an unconscionable number of times by them and other vocalists from both the National and the Commercial stations, We certainly will remember. I think I can say with very little exaggeration that in the past few weeks there has been hardly a station in the country which hasn’t rewarded my tuning-in with a rendering of this number at some stage of the programme, A very charming number in itself, but apt to become a little annoying when programme organisers forget the old Greek motto, "Nothing in excess." aA

SNAPSHOTS NOT SO SNAPPY.

kor some time past, station 4YO has included in its Monday night broadcasts the recorded feature "Snapshots." In this feature the musical items are usually heralded by an anecdote, Sometimes the connec

tion-for apparently there is always meant to be a con-

nection-may seen easily, but those occasions are few and far between. The jokes are hastily and unskilfully "put across,’ and quite often the point of them is lost in the so-called "snappy" dialogue that serves as a breather between items. Usually NBS recorded presentations have some merit, but there isn’t very much to be found in "Snapshots." The music without the jokes would provide beiter fare.