Listening

Press, 10 November 1981, Page 23

Listening

Mahler music The Mahler song cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) is the subject of this week’s Antony Hopkins “Discovering Music” talk. His discussion is followed by a complete performance of the song cycle on an historic recording made by contralto Kathleen Ferrier in 1949 with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walter. The Kindertotenlieder are settings of poems by Ruckert. Two of the poet’s children had died and though Mahler’s own daughters were in the best of health at the time that he completed the song cycle one of them died at the age of four some three years later. This confirmed the superstitious fear his wife had felt at the time he was composing the songs. Concert, 8.30 p.m. Credit cards The Tuesday afternoon play this week on National at 3.05 is “Credit Risk” by R. D.Wingfield. As a. result of the broadcast of this play in Britain, two of the leading credit card organisations decided to take another look at their security arrangements. The plot centres on a master scheme by a gang of crooks to net themselves a sizeable fortune from defrauding the credit card system. World of books Rather than a series of new titles, this week the 8.8. C. books programme on Concert at 7 p.m. tonight looks at travel books in general. Some of the earliest books were written about travelling on land and voyaging on the sea. Today, despite the countries of the world being brought to us on television and films and jet travel making different countries easier to visit, the travel book persists. Travel writing has and still does attract some talented writers. Two authors of highly-praised travel books, Jonathan Raban and Bruce Chatwin, contribute to the programme and discuss the aims and functions of the travel book.