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'DR. JOHNSON SEEMED PLEASED WITH THE MUSIC'

on Third Programme

View in Radio Times

A programme devised and introduced by Scott Goddard
Henry Cummings (baritone)
Winifred Roberts (violin)
Geraint Jones (harpsichord)
BBC Singers
(Conductor. Leslie Woodga-te )
BBC Chorus
New London Orchestra
(Leader, Max Saipeter )
Conductor, Alec Sherman
The title of this programme is a quotation from Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. It refers to an occasion when a Miss McLean played ' several tunes on a spinet ' and ' sung along with it.' Generally speaking, as is well known, Dr. Johnson, who must have heard a good deal of music, took little pleasure in it. and said a number of hard things about the art and its practitioners. ' All animated nature loves music-except myself,' he once stated ; though he admitted having been affected by ' some solemn musick played on French-horns ' at Rochester, and towards the end of his life he asked Burney to teach him ' at least the alphabet of your language.'
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to hear the kind of music that he and his circle are likely to have known. The programme includes an overture by J. C. Bach (' Pray, Sir, who is Bach? Is he a piper? ' said Johnson); songs and glees by Arne, Dibdin, and Samuel Webbe ; a harpsichord concerto by Abet; part of Handel's great funeral anthem for Queen Caroline; and a violin sonata by Joseph Gibbs , an organist at Ipswich. Harold Rutland

Contributors

Introduced By:
Scott Goddard
Baritone:
Henry Cummings
Violin:
Winifred Roberts
Harpsichord:
Geraint Jones
Conductor:
Leslie Woodga-Te
Leader:
Max Saipeter
Conductor:
Alec Sherman
Unknown:
J. C. Bach
Unknown:
Samuel Webbe
Unknown:
Joseph Gibbs
Unknown:
Harold Rutland

Third Programme

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