LILY ALLEN (Soprano)
THE GERSHOM
PARKINGTON QUINTET
The subjects which he chooses for his melodious orchestral suites makes it quite clear that John Ansell , the popular conductor of the London Wireless Orchestra, thinks of music as intended to add to the brightness of the everyday world. Although in every way a thoroughly equipped musician who is at home in the most serious realms of music, he has no great sympathy with any of the ultra-modern tendencies, nor with music of sombre and gloomy purport. He would have music bring more brightness into the daily round, and his own is all fresh and wholesome. The subjects he chooses are many and varied, but whether it be the merriment of children, the sea and ships, dances, or soldier men, he always leaves his hearers with a happy sense that the world is not so dull a place as they may have thought.
His interest in young folks, and his happy sympathy with them, has found vent in two Children's Suites, both instinct with gaiety and even with laughter, when that is called for. They set forth the nursery play-things like dolls, musical boxes and soldiers, as well as the three stolid figures from Noah's Ark. The wicked robbers from The Babes in the Bood have also a place, and romance is provided by other favourite stories, too.
IT is no disparagement at all to Barrie's piny to say that it owed a share of its success to Norman O'Neill 's effective music. Nor is it the only play which gained a good deal of additional charm from the music which ho composed specially for such productions.
Bom in London, O'Neill studied there for some time with Dr. Sometvell. But the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt claims a large share of the credit for the fine and very thorough musicianship which is the hall-mark of his work. A long and distinguished association with the theatre has marked him out as one pre-eminently well fitted for the task which has so often been entrusted to him, and his music for plays has often outworn the popularity of the dramas themselves. But, though presenting, in the most satisfying way, the atmosphere and the situations which it is illustrating, it is all music of such charm and individuality as to lose but little when divorced from its setting and played on the concert platform.
FOUNDED on Sir Walter Scott 's Waverley novel
' The Bride of Lammermoor,' Donizetti's ' Lucia' was one of the favourite operas all over Europe in the first half of last century. Its success depends very largely on the Prima Donna ; the part of Lucia is a brilliant and difficult one, demanding vocal gifts of an order which is seldom to be found nowadays.
In the last act the unhappy heroine loses her reason, and the Mad Scene, as it is called, from which these two numbers are taken, is her great opportunity. At first she recalls the happy time when her own true love was with her. She sings as though he were really there and the first part of the dreamy melody sets forth the happiness she believes is to be about them both. We shalli meet at the altar,' she sings in a cadenza which is at once brilliant and pathetic, but as her madness grows ever wilder, so the music rises to greater heights of florid brilliance with passages which are indeed such as to tax the singer's equipment in the most exacting way. None the less, the vocal part has some truly dramatic moments and real lyrical beauty. When adequately sung, the whole scene is tremendously effective.
QUINTET
Selection of Chopin's Preludes
9.0 WEATHER FORECAST,
SECOND GENERAL NEWS BULLETIN
9.15 Topical Talk
9.30 Local Announcements;
(Daventry only) Shipping Forecast and Fat Stock Prices