(From Birmingham)
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO ORCHESTRA
Conducted by JOSEPH LEWIS
BIZET, known to all the world as the composer of Carmen, wrote a good deal of other music not only for the theatre, but for the concert room. Among it is a set of twelve pieces for pianoforte duet. composed not, as their name might suggest, as music for singing games, such as are in daily use in schools now, but rather as little meditations on the happiness of childhood and its ways. Five of these he arranged at a later date for orchestra, in which form they have won a wider popularity than they enjoyed as pianoforte duets. The five movements are : a Miniature March, in which a little procession is heard inproaching and passing by; a Cradle Song, in which woodwinds and muted strings share ; an Impromptu with the name of ' The Humming Top'; a Duet with the sub-title ' Little Husband and Little Wife,' and a Merry Dance-a Galop.