JOHN TURNER (Tenor)
THE WIRELESS ORCHESTRA
Conducted by JOHN ANSELL
THE Prophet was John of Leyden, journeyman tailor, innkeeper, and religious zealot, who, with the Anabaptists, made a great commotion in Europe in the early part of the sixteenth century. Meyerbeer wrote some tuneful and dramatic music for the Opera dealing with these doings, but the only part of it we still hear at all frequently is the Coronation March, which accompanies the crowning of John in Munster Cathedral.
MANY listeners will remember the vogue of Arthur Goring Thomas , one of the comparatively few British composers who had success abroad, as well as at home, with Operas. Thomas was born in 1850, and studied in Paris and, under Sullivan, at our own Royal Academy (where his work is commemorated by a scholarship bearing his name). Later, he spent some time with Max Bruch. The Carl Rosa Opera Company, attracted by one of the works which was performed at the Academy, commissioned him to write an Opera; the result was Esmeralda (1883), the Opera of fifteenth-century Parisian life, which was played in Germany as well as in England.
The scene of Esmeralda is laid in fifteenth-century Paris.Â

10.10 JOHN TURNER Songs
ROSSINI took only a little over a fortnight to compose The Barber, Overture and all. The Overture, after being played on the opening night, was lost, it is said, through a copyist's negligence, and the music now played as a prelude to the Opera belongs to another Opera, Elizabeth, brought out the year before The Barber. Most of the music in the Overture fits the light and sparkling work very well. There is first a broad, dignified Introduction, and then a gay, Quick Movement.