Conductor,
Sir DAN GODFREY
Relayed from
The Pavilion, Bournemouth
(First Performance)
Nicholas Gatty , teacher, critic and composer, is known to the public chiefly as' a composer of operas. Audiences at the Old Vic have frequently heard one or two of them, such as Prince Fcrclon, a one-act extravaganza, and The Tempest, a setting of Shakespeare's text in three acts. Before the war he had operatic successes with Greysteel and Duke or Devil, both one-act operas, produced by the Moody Manners Opera Company. He has, however, written symphonic and chamber music, his best known orchestral work being the spirited ' Variations on Old King Cole
The opera, or rather music drama, Bronwen, is the third of the trilogy composed by Josef Holbrooke on the text of T. E. Ellis (the pen name aof Lord Howard de Walden). The three dramas (the first two are The Children (if Don and Dylan) together form an epic of Wagnerian dimensions entitled The Cauldron of Amvyn, founded on Welsh mythology. The first of the trilogy was produced in London in 1912 and performed later in Vienna and Salzburg (1923) ; Dylan was produced in London two years later at Drury Lane Theatre ; and Bronwen was given its first performance by the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1929. The story of the trilogy is tragic and passionate, and the music is in keeping with the strong, darkly painted moods of the text. The overture to Bronwen is often played separately in the concert room.
Homer Simmons, a young American piiinist and composer, who received his early musical education and training in Southern California, where he lives, has recently been studying with Paderewski, and will make his first appearance in England with the Bournemouth. Orchestra today.