Conducted by Howard Carr
Olga Haley (Mezzo-Soprano) : Mrs. Norman O'Neill (Pianoforte); and The Wireless Orchestra

Orchestra

The Belgian Composer, Gretry (1741-1813) began his musical life with a sore disappointment, and ended it with all kinds of honours and pensions. His disappointment lay in being turned out of a church choir as incapable, at the age of eleven; but when he found sympathetic masters, he got on fast enough. At seventeen he had written some little symphonies, and at eighteen he produced a Mass. Then he attracted the attention of a patron, who helped him to go to Italy. He was economical enough to travel to Rome on foot (falling in with an odd companion, a smuggler). He had still another rebuff there, for his master dismissed him as an incompetent student of composition.
He was not a scientific musician, but he soon found how to set words expressively and to make Operas that were acceptable to the French taste of his day. He wrote fifty such works, and was richly rewarded, not only by popular applause, but by Court patronage. He was made a Privy Councillor by the Bishop of Liege, and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon, who also gave him a pension of 4,000 francs to compensate him for losses sustained in the Revolution.
Cephalus and Procris was a fairly early work. written in 1775. Like many other Operas of Gretry, it is based on a mythological tale. The name of Procris is perpetuated in our phrase about her 'unerring dart,' given to her by Diana. The dart not only struck its prey without fail, but returned to the hand that loosed it. This Suite of Ballet Music from the Opera, which was arranged by the well-known Conductor, the late Felix Mottl, is to-night being performed for the first time in London.

Ballet Suite, ' Cephalus and Procris ' Tambourin ; Memietto (Les Nymphes de Diane) ; Gigue (First Time in London) - Grétry-arr. Motll
OLGA HALEY Aria, ' Bohemian Love Song ' (' Carmen ') - Bizet