From Birmingham
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(Leader, FRANK CANTELL), conducted by PEDRO MORALES
LEONIE ZIFADO (Soprano)

PEDRO G. MORALES who has organized this concert of representative present-day Spanish music, is a distinguished poet, composer, conductor, string player and critic (born in 1879) who is known in Spain as a leading authority on English music, and here as a welcome unofficial ambassador of Spanish music. His concerts in England after the war served to introduce to us a good many new Spanish works. and this, the first B.B.C. concert of Spanish symphonic music under a Spanish conductor, contains several pieces now being performed for the first or second time in this country. Turina, de Falla and Morales belong to the South of Spain. The predominating type of music, as almost always in Spanish programmes, is Andalusian, though the art songs (the form of music the least cultivated of all in Spain) are essentially Latin in style, having nothing in common with Spanish folk-lore. Morroba is as yet but little known to us - chiefly by some music of his which the remarkable guitarist Segovia has recently played. He derives his inspiration from Castilian sources.
The words of the first two songs are by Bequer, who has been called the Spanish
Heine, and those of the last two by Campoamor.

ORCHESTRA
Sinfonia Sevillana (Seville Symphony)...Turina

TURINA had a Parisian musical education, and his career as pianist, conductor, composer and teacher has been brilliant. This Symphony of Seville, which has only once before been heard at a B.B.C. concert, was awarded a prize in an important competition in Spain in 1920. The Symphony is in three Movements : —
(I) Panorama. Three elements may be distinguished in the music. First we have what may be called the 'background' music — hazy, static and of broad, indistinct outlines. Against this, two more positive melodic themes stand out, one in a minor key, the other a more seizable tune in a continuous dance-like rhythm and of a decided major-key brightness. These two ideas come and go, sharing the attention fairly equally, with the 'background' occasionally in view.
(2) By the Guadalquiver. Again there are three ideas presented. The first is impressionistic. Then, to a gently rippling undercurrent is heard a broad melody suggestive of the placid dignity of a great river. The third idea is one of fluttering movement.
(3) Festivity at San Juan de Aznalfarache.
This is carried out with rhythmic verve and high spirits that tell their own tale.

GURIDI (born 1886), who studied with d'Indy at Paris, Jongen at Brussels and Neitzel at Cologne, has based his works largely on Basque themes or folk-tales, and is reckoned by some people one of the founders of a Basque school of composition.
His Sword Dance, from an Opera first heard in 1920, has been given only once in this country.

LEONIE ZIFADO
Caneion (Song) of Salud (from ' La Vida Brevo' —' The Short Lived ') de Falla

CHORUS and Orchestra
Intermezzo (from ' La Vida Breve '—' The Short Lived ') ......... de Falla
(First performance in England)

MANUEL DE FALLA , an Andalusian of Cadiz, is perhaps the best-known of Spanish contemporary composers. He has absorbed the musical idioms of Spain until they are part of his blood and come out in every bar of his music. Salud, heroine of his Opera, is described by Mr. Morales as 'the Spanish operatic character par excellence.' The Intermezzo has not previously been given in England. 'In tho Opera at this point a chorus is sung off the stage, whilst a panoramic view of Granada is extended before the eyes of the audience.

ORCHESTRA
Concert Version of the Ballet. El Ampr Brujo '
(' Love, the Magician ') ............ de Falla

Love, the Magician is a one-act Ballet, concerned with Andalusian gipsy life. Candelas, a young, beautiful and passionate gipsy woman, has loved a handsome man of her own race. After his death she falls in love with Carmelo, another young gipsy, but is haunted by the jealous spectre of her former lover, of which she cannot free herself. Eventually the ghost is laid, and Candelas and Carmelo are united.
This is the first broadcast performance of the complete concert version of the Ballet.

Symphonic Poem, La Procession del Rocio
(The Procession from the Rocio) ....Turina
THE piece is in two linked Movements (a) Triana [a suburb of Seville] in Festival Mood, and (b) The Procession.

This is the composer's note to the work:-
'In the June of each year there takes place in Triana a procession in honour of the Virgin. The greatest families of the town take part in it in their carriages. A brilliant cavalcade escorts the banner of the Virgin, which is borne, to the accompaniment of music, on a car of silver, drawn by oxen.
Triana is en fete: the seguidillas [Spanish dances] are followed by soleares: a drunken man sings a street song; but the dance-music is interrupted by the arrival of the procession, heralded by a flute and drum player: the religious melody is heard several times and at last swells to a triumph, mingled with the strains of the royal march and of the bells at their loudest.
' Then the dances and the festival songs are resumed, till the sounds gradually die away in the distance.'