ANTONIO BROSA (Violin), REBECCA CLARKE (Viola), JOSEPH SLATER (Flute), GORDON BRYAN
(Pianoforte)
JOSEPH SLATER and GORDON BRYAN
THERE were two Searlattis, both brilliant performers, both prolific composers. Alessandro, born 1659, died 1725, belonged to a family almost all of whom were musicians. His son Domenieo, more distinguished than the father, was born in 1685, and soon achieved fame not only as pianist, but as composer for his instrument and for the stage. He is regarded as one of the most important figures not merely in opera, but in music itself ; ho was a distinguished member of the little group of musicians who followed the earliest pioneers of music as we know it now, as it comes down to us through tho great classical and romantic ages. The development and working out of themes, form, and balance in his melodies, and many of the factors of our present-day music in. which the early seventeenth century was only groping its way, reached a point in Scarlatti's music which was hardly surpassed until Mozart carried it along a stage farther. Even today, with its old-world simplicity and slight structure, his music has a charm and fresh. ness of its own. In listening to it as the modem pianoforte plays it, it must be remembered that it was composed for the much slighter-toned instrument of those early days.
ANTONIO BBOSA. REBECCA CLARKE , and GORDON BRYAN RAMEAU'S father, the Organist of Dijon
Cathedral, had no intention that Jean Philippe, his eldest son, should follow in his own footsteps. From a very early age, however, the youth decided the matter for himself; it is recorded of him that when only seven years of age, he played the harpsichord well, and could read at sight any piece of music set before him. Ho eventually won for himself the' undoubted position of the greatest French musician of his time, and many honours were conferred upon him. Among them, perhaps the most interesting, in these days of heavy taxation, was that tho authorities of his native town of Dijon exempted him and his descendants for all time from tho payment of municipal rates. He was on the point of being raised to noble rank in 1764, when he died of typhoid fever. He was accorded magnificent funeral honours, and the whole nation mourned his loss. EMILIA CONTI La Charmante Marguerite
(Old-French) JOSEPH SLATER, ANTONIO
BROSA, and CORDON BRYAN