The BBC Midland Orchestra
Leader, Alfred Cave
Conducted by Leslie Heward
Christian Darnton 's ballet Floriana was finished in January, 1934. According to the composer, ' the music is based on tunes current in the period of the setting (about 1745) with the exception of one original movement. I am indebted to Mr.
Smith of the Music Room, British Museum, for assisting me to find the Sarabande which, although in vogue in 1745 (it was being danced by some Italian artists at the Hay-market Theatre in that year) is obviously of an earlier date. Indeed, I should not be surprised if it were from the pen of Purcell himself, who, having died only fifty years earlier, might still be popular. The modal traditional melody " By the Weary Waters of the Tyne ", which I have used as the Air with its variations, is Northumbrian, and seemed to me appropriate as local colour in the action of the ballet, which concerns itself with the current fashion of the nobility and gentry aping the rusticity of the peasants. It was this fashion which gave rise to the charming Chelsea China figures, upon which the costumes and decor of the ballet have been based by Frederick Crooke , who supplied me with the scenario.'