THE WEEK’S RADIO Prize- Winning French Play

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 9

THE WEEK’S RADIO Prize- Winning French Play

The play, “True—But Don’t Believe It,” to be heard from 3YC at 8 p.m. on Friday, won the Italia Prize for the French writer, Claude Aveline, in 1955. Set in Paris, it is a macabre little story which takes as its starting point the common experience of having one’s imagination caught by something in the window of an antique shop.

The narrator, a down-to-earth, no-nonsense businessman in the prime of life, fond of good food and fine brandy, at the dead of night passes an antique shop which has fascinated him. He notices the door ajar and then his strange adventure begins. Owen Simmance plays the Narrator and Bernard Kearns, who produced the play in the Christchurch studios of the N.Z.8.C., is the Antique Dealer.

Troubador Tale “Aucassin and Nicolette” (3YC. 9.8 p.m. tomorrow) is a 13th century musical fable which has been adapted for the 8.8. C. by Rene Hague. Originally a trouvere (or troubador) story, it was meant to be sung, but here most of it is spoken in a modern English translation. However, the eternally lilting trouvere melodies, which would probably prove mono-

tonous at full length to modern listeners, appear from time to time sung to the old French words. When this production was broadcast in the 8.8. C. Third Programme, Deryck Cooke wrote in the “Listener”: “The 13th century French fable ... came across in all its spring-like freshness. . . . The melodies were tastefully arranged with instrumental accompaniment by Denis Stevens and most stylishly sung by Edgar Fleet, Wilfred Brown and Patricia Clark; but they emerged only by moments, disappearing behind the explanatory narrative like quaint, forlorn voices from the long-forgot-ten past.”

‘Eroica’ From Boston

Some music-lovers believe that studio performances for recording seldom have the spontaneity and vitality of concert hall performances and they prefer to hear recordings of “live” performances. An opportunity will come for them at 10.8 p.m. tomorrow, when 3YC will broadcast a Voice of America recording of Erich Leinsdorf conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. I William Byrd Featured composer from 3YC this week is William Byrd (1542-1623), the greatest and most prolific of Elizabethan musicians. Byrd’s greatness was recognised by his contemporaries and Thomas Morley wrote of him as “never to be mentioned among musicians without reverence.” He was widely recognised as the finest composer for the keyboard in Europe. Byrd was a Papist throughout his long life, but in his duties as organist at Lincoln Cathedral and as organist of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal, he wrote music for the Anglican Church. He was a man of austere personality and wide intelligence and culture. He was keenly interested in legal matters and seems to have spent a great deal of time in litigation over his various properties. Programmes of Byrd’s music are to be heard at 8 o’clock tonight, 8.30 p.m. tomorrow, 8.15 p.m. on Thursday, 7.30 p.m. on Friday and 7 p.m. on Saturday.