THE B.B.C. ORCHESTRA
Conducted by JOSEPH LEWIS
BORN in Paris, the Baron Frederic d'Erlanger studied both literature and music there, and has won notable successes in both directions. For a number of years he has made his home in London, taking a keen interest in its artistic doings ; he is one of the Directors of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. He has composed much, in larger as well as in smaller forms ; listeners cannot have forgotten the broadcast last year of his opera Tess, founded on the Hardy novel. That. has been played in many of the world's great opera houses; London hoard it in 1909, at Covent Garden, with Emmy Destinn in the principal role. This year, too, a profound impression was made by the first broadcast of his Mass for solo voices and orchestra.
T IKE another illustrious Sir Edward, German showed his interest in music at an early age by organizing and conducting a local band in his native town, arranging, and even composing, most of the music which they played. But after some years at the Royal Academy of Music, first as a student and afterwards as professor, the theatre claimed much of his attention, and the music which ho has writton for many of the Shakespeare plays, has had a large share in making him the popular composer he is. His own two operas, Merrie England and A Princess of Kensington, leave no room for doubt as to the direction in which his genius has found its happiest expression. These, like his orchestral music, are typically English, embodying all that is best in the English spirit and tradition.
The Theme and Six Diversions, although not ostensibly on any English subject, are easily recognizable as akin to his popular dances, and several of the Variations are actual dance tunes. The Theme is introduced by a brief prelude in which the same tune is heard in a slightly altered form, suggesting the Dorian mode. It is itself a very straightforward tuno, and though the Diversions are wprked out with great interest and variety, their kinship with the tuno is never lost sight of. Throughout the fourth, and at the beginning of the sixth, the theme is heard almost in its original guise...