The Birmingham Studio Orchestra
Conducted by Joseph Lewis
F. Alison Green (Tenor)
Dorothy Daniels (Pianoforte)

Delibes' incidental music to Le Roi s'Amuse was composed for a revival of the play at the Comedie Francaise in November, 1882. In the form of a Suite, it has always been popular, though not quite rivalling Sylvia or Coppelia, the ballets which more than anything else, won him his distinguished place as a composer of charmingly dainty and graceful music.
The Suite is a series of old-fashioned dances.
The first is a Galliard, a stately measure in triple time, which was long a favourite in Court and Society. Listeners will remember Shakespeare's line - 'I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg that it was formed under the Star of a Galliard.'
It was always followed in the old days by the still more stately Pavan, and in this Suite, Delibes followed that tradition. The third movement is the 'Scene of the Bouquet,' with a gracious flowing melody for the Violoncellos. The next has the name of Lesquercarde, a courtly movement in long, dignified measures; it is followed by a Madrigal, with a dainty tune shared by Violins and woodwinds. The sixth, and probably the best-known, movement is a Passepied, the old dance of supposedly Breton origin, very popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth" centuries. It was in a livelier time than most of the old dances, and the example in this Suite has a merry tune. A brief return of the Galliard, the first movement, brings the Suite to a close.