(Section C)
Led by Laurence Turner
Conducted by Leslie Woodgate
Enid Cruickshank (contralto)

Herald (1791-1833) held a foremost place in French opera during the best part of his life. Born in Paris he attended the Conservatoire, studying composition under Mehul. Harold began his career as a composer of symphonies and string quartets, but later devoted himself to opera and ballet and at odd moments turned out quantities of piano pieces of varying worth. The opera The Mule Driver was written in 1823 and the lively and colourful character of the music earned a success that greatly enhanced the composer's reputation. Herold's most popular opera, however, was Zampa, the overture to which is still a favourite in the repertoire of every military band and light orchestra. Quilter's incidental music to ' As You
Like It' was composed in 1922, and three of its four movements are introductions to different Acts: the first, 'Shepherd's Holiday', the second, 'Evening in the Forest', and the third, 'Merry Pranks'. The fourth is a dance which comes at the end of the play. One of Debussy's fellow students Rome tells us that as a young man, Debussy 'delighted in all that was refined, delicate, complicated, and strange.' What appealed to him most of all was the expression of intimate feelings. Human productions that were planned on a grand scale astonished him, without arousing either his admiration or his enthusiasm' The charming 'Petite suite,' originally written in 1886 for piano duet and later orchestrated by Busser, is, indeed intimate ' music, and characteristic of the composer's love of refinement and delicacy.
Tchaikovsky always considered The Sleeping Beauty, written in 1889, when he was at the height of his power, his best ballet. As a whole it has indeed proved the most popular, for Nut-cracker is better known by the delicious concert suite of numbers selected from it than as a stage-work. The 'Russian Waltz King' certainly never wrote a more haunting waltz than this in The Sleeping Beauty.