GEORGE BEGGS (baritone)
THE BBC NORTHERN IRELAND ORCHESTRA
Leader, PHILIP WHITEWAY
Conductor, E. GODFREY BROWN
The plot of Sir Charles Stanford 's most successful opera deals with a conflict between Irish lads and English soldiers — 'rebels' and 'tyrants' as they call each other-and the overture is designed to emphasise this conflict. The composer has used two folk-tunes, one Irish and one English. The Irish one is best known to us (from the verses written to fit the music by Alfred Perceval Graves) as 'Father O'FIynn', but the tune is really that of 'The Top o' the Cork Road'. The English melody is an old marching tune, which even in Cromwell's day was known as 'The Glory of the West'.
The story of the opera is full of action, and the music is written in the manner of a folk-opera by a musician with a striking sense of the theatre. It was first given in London in 1896, and has been occasionally performed since.