Conductor, B. WALTON O'DONNELL
HILDEGARD ARNOLD (Violoncello)
This popular suite of dances originally formed part of the incidental music written for the production, in 1909, of Maeterlinck's fairy play, The Blue Bird. Those who saw the play, which tells how two children, Tyltyl and Mytyl, pass for a time from the Land of Memory and find adventure in a cosmic world of fantasy, will remember the sympathetic charm and beauty of the production, and how aptly and gracefully Norman O'Neill 's music fitted the mood of the play. The first number in this suite, ' Dance of the Mist-Maids,' accompanies the passage of the children through a mist which blots out the Land of Memory. The second is a ' Dance of Fire and Water,' each fighting for supremacy. The third is the ' Dance of the Stars ' in the Palace of Night ; and the last, the ' Dance of the Hours,' who came out of the grandfather clock when Tyltyl turned the magic stone.