REGINALD WHITEHEAD (Bass)
THE WIRELESS MILITARY BAND
Conducted by B. WALTON O'DONNELL
AUBER suffered all his life from an absurd diffidence about the value of his own work, and his music achieved success almost in spite of his own modesty about it. Nothing would ever induce him to go and hear a performance of any of it ; he is recorded as having said that if he bad to be present when his own music was played, he would never write a note in his life. As a young man he was here in England for a time as an office clerk, but was then already preoccupied with music, and successful in a modest way with slight vocal pieces for drawing-room use. In 1804, at the age of twenty-two, he returned to Paris and abandoned all thought of a commercial career. It was some time, however, before he had much success in music, although he had no doubt of the direction in which his own gifts pointed.
He is regarded as the last in the long line of composers of what the French call 'Opera Comique,' a term for which there is no exact equivalent in English; it conveys something more of grace and refinement, something on a slightly higher musical plane, than we understand by ' Comic Opera.' He had a great gift of easy, natural melody, and was a real master of orchestral effect. He had a deft hand, too, in sketching the personalities of his characters, in the music he gave them to sing. And his Operas are so full of those qualities of brightness and good humour of which a harassed world is sorely in need, that it is a real misfortune to have them relegated, as they are, to neglect and forgetfulness.
The Overture to Marco Spada begins with four bars of sparkling Prelude, and then the clarinet has a wistful little tune which the woodwinds and strings together carry on. That is followed by a broad melody for strings and horns, repeated by the whole orchestra, and then a more vivacious movement follows with two lighthearted tunes alternating one with the other. They are interrupted more than once by a tender melody played first by strings and woodwinds together, but the mood of the Overture grows in energy, to finish on the whole strength of the orchestra. REGINALD WHITEHEAD