S.B. from Newcastle
Artists from the London Studio
GARDA HALL (Soprano)
WATCYN WATCYNS (Baritone) The MARSDEN COI.LIERY BAND
Conducted by JACK BODDICE
THE Brass Band came into being originally as a mounted band, most of the instruments being easier to manipulate in one hand, while the player holds the bridle rein with the other, than the woodwinds would have been. The French call it a 'Fanfare,' applying the same term to a cavalry band on mounted duty. It has naturally not the same fullness and variety as the complete Military Band, but can produce very rich, sonorous tone with gradations of quality and strength which are remarkable when one knows its limitations. In this country, almost more than anywhere else, brass bands have long been popular apart from any military use, and many societies and industrial concerns have their own brass bands, which often reach a very high pitch of excellence. Our British brass band contests are unique in their own way.
VON SUPPE, best known to us by such evergreen favourites as the Overtures Poet and Peasant and Light Cavalry, wrote for the light opera stage with such tireless industry that, according to one authority, he left the amazing number of 165 light operas and smaller works, as well as at least two grand operas. Boccaccio was one of the comparatively few which were heard in London. It was given here at the Comedy Theatre in 1882, and was warmly welcomed. The music is full of that charm and brightness which we associate with the Viennese stage, and though only the Overture is now played, it, at least, bids fair to keep its place as a favourite concert piece.
It is interesting to note that Suppe anticipated
Lilac Time by a little opera which he called Franz Schubert , and in which some of Schubert's own melodies were incorporated.
DELIBES' most successful Grand Opera was broadcast at the end of February, so that listeners had an opportunity of deciding for themselves whether or not he was as successful in that serious vein as he is with Ballets and similar light music. In his own day there was no doubt at all about the popularity of his Ballets and of some of his lighter stage pieces, but like many men who have won success in that way, he was anxious to achieve a similar position on the serious opera stage, an ambition which he only partially realized. Suites or Selections from the music of three of his Ballets are frequently played—Sylvia, Coppelia, and La Source (The Fountain)—and it would be difficult to say which of the three is the most popular. All are tuneful and melodious with that lightness of touch and airy grace which we call French, and all lend themselves well to arrangement for military band and in other ways.