ROBERT DONAT (Recitations)
THE AUGMENTED STATION ORCHESTRA, conducted by T. H. MORRISON
THOUGH the music for Shakespeare's The Tempest was written in Sullivan's student days, it was only in 1903, after his death, that it was heard at regular public performances of tho play, at the Court Theatre.
He wrote introductory pieces to four of the Acts, that to the Fourth Act (the one that includes his Masque music) being the only piece named ' Overture.'
The Overture opens, after a sort of ' 'call to order,' with a dainty Woodwind theme, whose motif is heard a good deal throughout the Overture. Tho Second Main Tune (also given to Woodwind) is as lively as the First. Neither is developed, but after a short episode, both are recapitulated, and there is a loud and exciting Coda,
WE know tho. Russian Glazunoy chiefly as a writer of large works for the concert hall, but occasionally he wrote music for the stage. The Seasons, a Suite of Orchestral pieces from which Winter is taken, was written as music for a stage Ballet. Certainly, if anyone is able to give us the feeling of winter in music, it should be a, native of a country whose rivers are frozen for several months every year.
SIR EDWARD GERMAN'S Symphonic Suite, The Seasons, was written at the request of the authorities for the Norwich Festival of 1899. Winter is in two sections, preceded by an Introduction, in which we hear a resolute theme which is frequently met with later.
The first section is based on a hymn-time-like theme which we may take as representing the iron-bound aspect of earth in Winter. After this section has been expounded, we como to a gay portion, in Tarantella style, in which, after some prefatory matter, the Clarinet begins the dance.
The hynm-like portion strikes in again later, the dance continuing as a counter-theme to it, and so the music runs on to its boisterous end.