Listening

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 11

Listening

Music for a living

The working world of the musician is explored in two 8.8. C. programmes. The first this Friday (Concert. 7 p.m.) looks at the conductors who have “Music for a living.'' Eight conductors are interviewed and we hear their views on their chosen career. The programme is interspersed with recordings illustrating the art of the conductor. ‘Werther’ The hero of Goethe's novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther" was driven by sentimental love to suicide. Massenet based his four-act opera “Werther” on Goethe and the opera was. first produced in Vienna in 1892. The recording of Massenet's “Werther" on the Friday Concert Programme at 8.05 p.m. has soloists with the London Philharmonic conducted by Michel Plasson. Honor McKellar introduces "Werther” for Radio New Zealand. ‘Time for Music’ This Friday evening's time for music (National, 7.30) is a mixture of music played by instruments for which it was not composed. The selection includes' the. Band of the Garde Republicaine playing a Suppe overture. "The Poet and the Peasant”; the French soprano Danielle Licari singing Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto, among other pieces; a movement from Vivaldi's “Seasons” played by Tomoko Sunazaki on koto; as well as piano miniatures arranged for orchestra and other pieces played by flautist James Galway. ‘Scrapbook’ The particular genius of the British comedian, Tony Hancock, belonged to a tradition of great comic exponents of the frustration felt by the common man. He is always vulnerable, under a confident exterior, and always embroiled in the conflict of life. Like Chaplin or Keaton, he never wins but keeps trying. Tony Hancock returns briefly to the National Programme at 9 o’clock tomorrow night in "Saturday Scrapbook,” in his classic performance as “The Radio Ham.” Saturday Scrapbook begins as usual at 7.30 p.m. with music to bring back memories, including listener requests and old time dance music. St Cecilia To mark the day of the patron saint to music, St Cecilia, the Concert Programme gives a Sunday morning broadcast at 9.09 of the Gounod St Cecilia Mass. Jean-Claude Hartemann conducts soloists with the Rene Duclos Choir and Paris Conservatoire Concerts Orchestra and organist Henriette Puig-Roget. English violins The violin concertos by the English composers, Delius, Walton and Britten, in recordings by three English orchestras with different soloists are a feature of the Sunday night Concert Programme. The Delius 1919 Violin Concerto has Yehudi Menuhin as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic conducted by Meredith Davies. Walton’s 1939 concerto can be heard with Ida Haendel the violin soloist with the Bournemouth Symphony and conductor Paavo Berglund. Finally Rodney Friend is soloist in the Britten Violin Concerto, Op 15 (1939) with the London Philharmonic, conducted by John Pritchard.