1950-03-11 — Page 11

NEVILLE CARDUS writes on MUSIC

Few batons in British hands

future.

LONDON. for conducting can be discerned investment for the CURIOUS fact in the " a safe music of Great Britain today has not received enough comment.

A

on

Music in helped by zubridjen national Exchequer from the and local authoilies to an ex- tent which, it is not equal to the the amounla granted Continent to symphony orches tras and opera, is none the less proof of an inerencing concern for the things of the spirit..

Yot It in the fact that in several Instances 21 for- important eign conductor enjoys an ap pointment - Kari

ap

Constant Lambert how parently given himself to bal- let. of the rest there are only George Weldon, Herbert Menger |

Norman del Mar. The and others reveal nothing potential of individuality.

An orchestral player of repu¬ who naturally wishes tation not to disclose his name, writes to me malataining that even an embryonic Beecham nowadays would need to fight hard to ob-

here to fala scop

develop inborn gifts.

"I nin tred," he says, "of Rankl at playing for conductor who in can't speak English articulate-

Covent Garden, Susskind Scotland, Schwarz mouth.

at Bourne- ly." This, of course, is an old

story.

Van Beinum has been closely Stokowsky said—

with

the London

Ascociated

and Orchestra, Philharmonic the Philharmonia is not often conducted by an Englishman.

Many years ago, Stokowsky came one morning to a rehear- sal of the Philadelphia Orchez- fra, at the end of a hard reason, and told the players he was tired man and badly in need of rest at once.

by the The vacancy caused retirement of Sir Adrian Boult from the BBC was offered to Kubelik, who could not nccept the honour: while Toscanini has received an Invitation to len neurty every dlatinetion to the opening of

"I know," he said to them, "that you all, in common with

orchestral player

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1950.

TURN FOR THE WORSE

DAB and FLOUNDER

-by Walter

DABI CU

· SALES CHART

· DAN A.CO SALES CHART

NEW BOOKS

GEORGE MALCOLM-THOMSON...

The maddest of our mad squires

дз

י.

equal Interest, including A superb true story of a wild night London when in Elizabethan truculent young men fall foul of The whole flavour the watch.

THE STRANGE LIFE OF ed the result. It was dis inins other materint of almost

CHARLES WATERTON. appointing.

Reputed climax of his career By Richard Aldington.

a practical naturalist was Evans, 12s. 6d. 200 pages. when he leapt on the back of on alligator, having previously

on the creature's face, "Should it be asked how I the Squire is quite managed to keep my seat, bit mad, like Charles Water- would answer, hunted some ton, well, bless him all the years with Lord Darlington's

G

same.

OD bless the Squire and

his relations. And marked the "fear and peturba of Shakespeare's England is to

I

be found in that gaudy episode.

But to the sonnets: How does Hotson date them? By relating some obscure lines to some for- Eotlen news-items of the poot's day,

her

The mortal moon hath eclipse endur'd." Many have 'supposed that this referred to Queen Elizabeth. But in fact no Elizabethan writer would dare to hint at the Queen's mortality, She was the sun, never the moon. And she certainly would not be "mortal" which, in the diem of the time, might mean "deadly."

Are not mad aquires fox-hounds." part of the glorious tradi- Charles .cut the alligator'a In Sonnet 107 occurs tho`line. tion of England? And if throat and set about the bust- they are, does not Charles Dess of preserving its skin. sparkle with peculiar viva taxidermist.

He had his own methods an a Sooking the skin city in the firmament of in corrosive sublimate, he was dottiness?

then able to model the fame exactly as he wished, In one of Charles was a very plous Ro- the masterpieces of his art he monkey Into the man Catholle gentleman of the reshaped first half of last century, whose likeness of a Mr Lushington, a ancestral home was on'n inko Treasury official and, no doubt, leland in Yorkshire. At Stony a Hanoverian, who insisted on hurst the Jesult Fathers had the charging him 20 percent im- wit that he wild passion port duty on his natural history for nature had better be cann- specimens. lised somehow. They appointed him school rat-catcher, He nhowed his gratitude for this

honour by lifelong devotion to the school and the Society of Jesus.

For

a

10

No, Staring us in the face, no Hotson too modestly puts it, was the true meaning. The mortal

E

TIM BATURDAY KVENČNI POLT"

"Ah-h-ht, yes ----

Books

16M3

your change."

Dean throwing his gaiters away

moon was the Spanish Armadu TTIS caustic wit will make Joyce Cary's, which of 1588 which sailed up-Channel H'S

in #

Ilne moon-shaped

of

1631

are

will make which ten port battle. As a famous Elizabethan of a Dean provocative read much Interlined, pamphlet calls it, "a horned. It covers 23 years till Moone of huge and mighty shippen."

Secret of her success, she has into life at many been parlour-maid,

1934, when he retired from plunged the dennery of St Paul's points.

E had many accidents during

his irnvcis, of course. cured them himself. Poultices of boiled cowa' dung for open his chief detestation wounds.

Self administered The year 1588 hnd for long; (apari from Henry VIII,

of bleedings for any form of in- been awaited with apprehension. or, as his diary on the pro- cook-general, war-tims nurse. royal gont") wan the House of fammation. Calumet or quinine The sun was to be eclipsed once, per date puts it: "Returned Spitfire factory hand. who ever lived, are convinced Mar Is unusually gifted.

Hanover. And the brown rat for the rest.

and the moon twice. Shake to trousers."- London's new concert hall at that your proper place la on heard hin a year or two awan, an Charles firmly believed.

U20 of the word

บ this rostrum, that you

Strauss last the Festival of 1951.

de Speare's introducet Inte England by

Waterton's later life was

"celipse" is and was in George divinely appointed to wield the came to England

accident. high wall To war against It voted to buliding

The upshot of the investiga baton but fate lins unjustly the audience.

was, therefore, a crusndo pur round his Yorkshire state at a tion? Thint the main body of the chrated you of your rights.

cost of £10,000, The family sonnets was completed by 1589, Well, gentlemen,

Norman del Mar conducted sued with the vehement

n bird canctuary. perement of one who had seven neres became

when the poet was 25-about 14 These facts are not stated in the inst concert of the season, Macbell and a number of "ar-

commonly assigned to them. I •. temper of chauvinism;

saints in his family tree. I can am not bullt that way.

Once upon a time

nny

not think we are, on the whole,

nation passionnie music,

1

about

were when

tomorrow in

Richard

Lem-

no

Picture him, throwing his

gaiters away!

and, we programme has been rangenis" from The Woman for eight more or less outhentic within the walls, the squire wears carlier than the date more | Bishop

I am too ex- will rehearsed. hausted to conduct It, so will any one of you come forward and relieve me, just for once? Do not speak all together; just one of you, please."

Take Norman.del Mar And not a voice was heard; there were no volunteers,

It is true, all the same, that Or so me, when not no 25 years o much was insisted of is now--- about the importance of music In our national way of life, and it had to rely the welfare of heavily in private "patronage,"

It is not a fair story, inaybe; we could

proudly to polni

Sir Thomas Beecham and achieve chance is a fire thing, but con- ments in opera never excelled stant practice is better.

"There,

before or subsequently, for all- Assuming for argument's round excellence,

was make that there is a young man also Sir Henry Wood, Harty, in the country at the moment

Landon Ronald, Al- endowed with half of Torcani Goossens, bert Coates, with a number of ni's genius, how could be begin young conductors of promise at to prove it, even if he were

heels Surgent,

Bucss, member of one of the best of Howard (the most gifted of the our orchestras? lot), Boult, Cameron and Julius Harrison.

their

Of these only Beecham, Jar gent, Cameron and Boult remain (though it is to be hoped Guos- cena will came back to us),

And very tic new talent

Would he be given charge of a "Prom," say, if only for part of the programme at rehearsal? This is not a rhetorical quee tion: I simply don't know but would like to know.

In

my opinion Norman del

Without a Shadow, The per- formances were impressive, and he didn't ure a score,

b

It was not the only outlet for bla Kenlus, When he went to Hone he and companion

Later I heard him in the named Jones climbed the facade immense and difficult Ninth of St. Peter's to the very top of Symphony of Mahler, but now the dome and left their gloves

with grappling Was

teen the lightning conductor. Giant Choice Symphony Or

is to Chelsea chera, and it and the same instrumentalists We seem to be obliged to turn now if we wish to watch his progresa at concerta,

Give them a chance

There in only one school for conductors-work at a rehear

of a concert really to be presented in public.

POPE PIUS VII thought this a Tjest in the poorest taste and coinmanded that the gloves be removed. But nobody in Rome carry out His could be found Holiness's command.

Nobody Stony- except the Old Boy of

hurst,

passed the daya happily making war with arsenle and a Dem- crara tiger cal upon the supreme chemy of mankind, the brown rat. The Hanoverian rat!

24

done by intelligent reading. Will 11 only shows what can be

Hotson now tell us who was the

Richard Aldington makes an "onlie begetter" to whom the affectionate, humorous book out sonnets are dedicated? He will. of this odd life.

_*_RICHARD ALDINGTON........... LUC.. born on June 8, 1898. After a periou

SIDES

OF

THE ROAD. By Sidney Roger son and Charles Tunni- cliffe. Collins. 218. 183

of servicd 14 the Briell Arm BOTH in the First World War, he became « reviewer of French terature... ifo lives in Friet...ffis frit novel was Death of a Tiers, which appeared in 1929. as travelled extensively, and his books have been translated tnta most European languages.

..

pages.

HERE are some very handsome

and

50

Now lives in a Hertfordshire cottage, unmarried after all, Dickens isn't a name one would lightly change,

There are many good stories, mixed with come devastating

A FAMOUS surname does comments on church procedure.

The author of a new help Winnington Ingram novel Lace Curtain has had two. comes in for candid criticism. She is Ellin, daughter of cablo- De Inge will be 00 this year. andi-iclephone millionaire Clar-

·

A LIMITED <dition (1000 ence IL Mackey, and wife of coples) of Shaw's latest play, Irving Berlin, the song-writer.

ERIC WILLIAMS. of Buoyant Tifons, should draw buoyant dollars from American Wooden Horse fame, tells mo collectors. Constables plan to he is writing two more books.

charge six Aultures 0 a copy for this play, withdrawn after Ave Fint will describe his adven

ture up to the first part of his weeks West End run. It will have 17 full-page drawings, "in baroque

que style," by Clare Win- sten, wife of Shaw's neighbour S. Winden, who compiled the cent Qulatessence of G.B.S. for Hutchinson.

pliity; went to a book of travels, mostly Italian

"It's ack-and-neck which will get finished first," he said.

raco

Told me, too, of the strango when chance by which, in Copen meeting hagen after the war he traced

Danish seaman Jencen

who Monica Dickens,

helped smuggle him out of the of

Germany in the last stages of his escape,

great-grand-daughter

minortal Charles.

HERE

pictures of very handsome • "I

AM HAPPIEST cattle, sheep, horses, SON- SHAKESPEARE'S

forth. Never, surely, has Bri-cooking, reading and NETS DATED. By Leslie ich farming been celebrated in people," says Hotson. Rupert Bart so stately a volume,

Not that this should be thought Davis. 21s. 244 pages

of as a mere pleture book; Tunni- THERE is no more fascinating cliffe's Illustrations are match- Sinco One Pair of Hands, the

piece of literary detective ed by Rogerson's text, authorlie-

There has written seven other novels, work than Leslie Ilaison's hunt tive but easy reading..

more agreeable including the new Flowers on for the date of which Shake- could be no

Grass,

ar vay of learning about agricultho

Her scripts speare wrote his sonnets.

hand-written, in exercise books, The story is told in the first ture than this.

with Iow alterations-unlike did! part of this book, which

It was in expeditions to the It should not be beyond the wit of man

to devise some jungles of South America, how rcheme whereby a young con-ever, that Charles fully realised

He tramped through THE flair himself. ductor with passion and might "get his chance" and, by swamps and undergrowth bare- trial and error, prove or dis- fool. prove his credentials.

He captured deadly poisonous WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED.snakes singlehanded.. He made one snake bite itself and watch- -(London Exprave Service)

con-

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

a)

WHY DON'T

YOU JUST GUESS

AT ITS

* YOU'VE GOT ENOUGH CORN

FOR TEN FAMILIES AND TWENTY!!

RADIO SHOWS .... YOU KNOW WE ALWAYS HAVE TO

GIVE THE

STUFF AWAY?

--London Express Serulce

Many inquiries had falled; then, as he was about to drop tho telephone after another dis- appointment, the girl operator cut in with: "I think I know And tho the man you want.”

Can Spring Be So Far Behind?

Bu KEMP STARRETT

DON'T LOOK AT ME!

I DIDN'T LEAVE IT. OUT HERE!

"LET'S HAVE BOTIL!

YOUR INCOME TAX.

WHEN HE BEGINS TO COUNT OF HIS FINGERS, MUMBLE AND CUSS THE MARCH 15 SPRING "CLEANING IS NEAR.

THE OLD CONTROVERSY: COUGHI MEDICINE VERSUS RYE, IS A SURE SIGN OF

SPRI'G.

CORN

LA

ONIONS

FORT ONIONS.

GEARS

BUSH LIMAS.

'BEANS'

CASSAGE

WHAT DID I DO

TO THEM? THEY'RE

JUST THE WAY

YOU LEFT 'EA

LAST TALL

COFR 1938 BY GENERAL FEATURES

CORP. TM.WORLD RIGHTS RESERVED.

WHEN HE STARTS PLANNING A TAREE ACRE GARDEN FOR A FORTY-BY- FIFTY BACK VÅRD....

WHEN THEY

BEGIN TO POKE

IN THE SNOW

LOOKING

FOR SIGNS

OF CROCUSES

AND THE

·GARDEN HOSE.

WHEN THE SUBURBANITE GETS INTERESTED IN HIS PAINT BRUSHES

SPRING IS NEAR:.:

IT'S GETTING ON TO SPRING WHEN YOU FIND THAT THE CAR. POLISH HAS BEEN FROZEN AND OR DRIED UP.

"BY THE WAY, MARY,

HAVE YOU SEEN

MY HIP BOOTS LATELY *

WHY, YES!

MET THEM

JUST LAST

WEEK

*IF YOU WANT IT

FIXED UP

YOU DO IT

YOURSELF!?

WHEN HE DISCOVERS THE PORCH SWING AND THINKS MAYBE YOU COULD FIX IT IN YOUR SPARE TIME