THIS is an essay in the Italian style, written
-when Beethoven was about twenty six. It consists of a long recitative, with various changes of pace, in which the wronged one upbrafds the deceiver, and calls for heaven's vengeance upon him. Then, with a revulsion of feeling, she begs the ' avenging gods' to spare him. ' For him I lived,' she declares, ' and I would die for him.'
Then, in a slow Air, she pleads with the hard-hearted one himself to . stay, for if he departs, she must perish of grief.
In the final section she asks why he treats her thus, and beseeches him to have pity on her distress.
EVERYONE likes the fine tune of Watford Davies' Melody. It was written to celebrate the tercentenary, in 1008, of the birth of Milton, and performed 'in St. Mary-le-Bow Church, close to where Milton was born, on the birth date, December 9.
CARILLON was Elgar's contribution, in the early months of the war, to ' King Albert's Book.' The music accompanied a patriotic poem by the Belgian, Emile Cammaerts , entitled Sing, Belgians. Sing ! During the recitation of the verses the music takes a subsidiary position ; it is in the Prelude and the Interlude botween the stanzas that its full power is revealed. The present arrangement dispenses with the declamation.