The BBC Midland Orchestra
Leader, Alfred Cave
Conducted by Leslie Heward
Frank Tapp
A native of the English West Country, Frank Tapp began playing the piano and composing at a very youthful age, and made his first appearance as a pianist when he was only five. He had the good fortune to enlist the interest of Sir Frederick Bridge and of Paderewski while he was still a boy, and on their advice came to London to study, winning a scholarship at the Royal College, where he was a pupil of Sir Charles Stanford. Since then he has been active in English music, as conductor, composer, and music editor, and among other posts has held the directorship of the Municipal Orchestra in his native city of Bath. None of his other activities, however, has kept him from composing constantly, for such special occasions as Bath and London
Festivals.
' Metropolis ' is obviously inspired by the life of such a city as London, and the opening, with its hint of St. Martin's bell, suggests early morning and the city's awakening.
Rhapsody on English Airs
Felix White 's Rhapsody is his ninth orchestra] work and was written last autumn. It is based on two seventeenth-century English airs, the first, a mournful one, ' As I walked forth one summer day ' (a forsaken lover's complaint), and the second, a merry one, ' Oh, oh, oh, for a husband The work is in free variation form, first slow, then quick, and finally dying away slowly and quietly. Each fresh presentation of the two themes is in a different key, but though considerable freedom is shown their essential qualities remain unimpaired.
Halffter's Sinfonietta in D
Ernesto Halffter , born in 1905, is one of the leading younger Spanish composers. His Sinfonietta, although decidedly modern in harmony and orchestration, melodically and formally reverts to the style of the old Sinfonia concertante of Haydn's day. Composed in 1924, it won the first prize in the National Competition of 1925, but was revised afterwards by Falla, under whom Halffter studied. In 1927 the Sinfonietta was performed by the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was then heard in several musical centres in Europe and America. The first performance in England was given by the BBC Chamber Orchestra at the ninth Annual Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music.