Some of his Jolliest Keyboard Music
Played by JAMES CHING
French Overture in B Minor
"BROADCASTING has given us so many opportunities of hearing Bach's music that there is happily now no need to stress the truth that Bach is one of the merriest-hearted of all Composers. His mirth can be gay and sparkling, or of that more quiet and intimate kind that a friend quietly shares with another who understands him.
This week's selection from Bach is designed to show him, for the most part, in his most affable moods.
The title of to-night's work is a little unusual.
Bach used the general title Overture ' (as the custom then was) for a set of dance-like Movements preceded by a Prelude in the French style (this movement comprising a slow introduction, a lively fugal section, and a repetition of the slow portion). Hero ho writes such a set of pieces, not for the Orchestra, but for the keyboard (the Harpsichord, in his day-preferably, for this work, one with two rows of keys), and he shows that he is conceiving the whole in tho style of an Orchestral ' Overture ' by putting in more numerous and more varied Movements than those contained in the normal keyboard Suite. He does not, of course, try to imitate Orchestral style.
The Movements of the Overture ' which we are to hear are four in number-the Prelude proper, a Gavotte, two Passepieds (originally a lively old French, possibly Breton, round dance), and the dainty little concluding piece of the set, called Echo.