DOROTHY BENNETT (Soprano)
JOHN THORNE (Baritone)
THE WIRELESS Military BAND
Conducted by B. WALTON O'Donnell BORN, in 1763, of humble parents, Mehul showed such precocious aptitude for music, that at the age of ton he was organist of a convent in his native town. Four years later he was deputy organist to his master, Hauser, in ,the more important church of Lavaldieu, and there his playing so impressed an influential visitor that the boy was taken to Paris for further study. There followed many years of careful, earnest work, partly under the guidanco of Cluck, and by 1790, Mehul had established a distinguished position as composer. Church music had occupied him first; to a mind of simple nobility and refinement as his was, deeply touched with religious sincerity from his childhood, the music of the church made a strong appeal. But no French composer may neglect the theatre, and it was in opera that Mehul made his mark. His industry may be measured by the production, within seventeen years, of twenty-four operas, besides many cantatas and songs. All these were produced under favourable auspices, and when, in the last years of the century, in the midst of the Revolution, ho composed ' Joseph,' he had been created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and a member of the Institut, beloved and honoured by his pupils and by the musical world of Paris. Stricken in middle ago by consumption, he was sent to Provence, but it was too late and he returned to Paris, to die there in 1817. His opera, Young Henry's Hunt, appeared in 1797. Only the Overture survives-a merry piece which describes its subject largely by the use of actual old tunes and calls for the Hunting Horn.