(From Birmingham)
The BAND OF H.M. 1ST BN. THE Royal
WARWICKSHIRE REGIMENT
(By kind permission of the Commanding and other Officers)
Conducted by C. A. HARTMANN
Relayed from the Jephson Gardens Pavilion,
Leamington Spa
ANDRE MESSAGER , known to us in this country as the composer of The Little Michus and of Veronique, is the last of the long line of French comic opera composers whose music really preserves qualities worthy to bo dignified by tho name ' Opera.' Ho was a pupil of Saint-Saens, and in every way a worthy pupil. All his music has not merely charm and sparkling grace, but a dignity and stylo which tempt one to call him the aristocrat of the comic opera stage.
The suite The Two
Pigeons is a ballet in six movements. Tho first is a march, energetic and with a hint of Hungarian rhythm; the second is tho dance of tho two pigeons (we should call them in English the two dear young things'), dignified and capricious by turns ; the third is a theme with three variations. Tho fourth is a sort of interlude, a divertissement, as the composer calls it, sprightly and full of interest ; the fifth is a Hungarian dance with the real energy for which wo look in such a piece, and the last, called simply Final, is again in a very quick march rhythm, finishing on a note of boisterous energy.