Relayed from the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth (No. XVII of the Thirty-fourth Winter Series) The BOURNEMOUTH Municipal AUGMENTED
Orchestra
Conducted by Mr. GORDON JACOB and Sir DAN GODFREY
LEONARD ISAACS (Pianoforte)
AFTER service in the Great War, which included two years as prisoner of war in Germany, Gordon Jacob entered the Royal College of Music to study composition under the late Sir Charles Stanford and conducting under Dr. Adrian Boult. He is now on the teaching staff there. His principal works include a ballet, The Jew in the Bush, Concerto for Viola and orchestra, Concerto for Pianoforte and strings, String Quartet, Festival Overture, and Suite for Military Band. The present work was composed in March, 1928.
The composer explains that it is named after a promontory on the East Coast of Ireland, a few miles north of the mouth of the River Boyne. It is not intended to be pictorial nor topographical, though it may be taken as an attempt to express in terms of music something of the exhilaration one feels when standing on a rocky point overlooking the sea and, in its quieter moments, one's response. to the romantic beauty of the wide views to be obtained from this par tieular spot-to the. North, Dundnlk bay and the Mourno Mountains; to the South, the hills of Wicklow ; inland, Tara's ruins on the sky-line; and out to sea, if the day be a clear one, the Isle of Man, an illusive wraith on the far horizon ; and, over all, the charm of Ireland green and fair.'
' The work is cast in classical symphonic form.
Thero is no introduction, the principal subject being delivered at the outset by the full force of the orchestra. After some brief development, a climax is worked up over a rhythmical ground. bass, and then the music dies down to make way for the second group of subjects, the chief of which is an oboe melody accompanied by the harp. The quiet mood thus set up prevails for some time, until the recapitulation is reached and the vigorous atmosphere of the opening is re-established. The work ends with a quiet coda based on the chief second subject and a mysterious passage unconnected with the main themes which have been previously heard in the middle section of the work.