NELLIE WALKER (Contralto)
TREFOR JONES (Tenor)
THE WIRELESS MILITARY BAND
Conducted by B. WALTON O'DONNELL
SIR JULIUS BENEDICT , though counted as among our English composers, was really a German who made his home with us. He occupied a leading place in the Victorian world of music; for about forty years he was looked up to as one of its leaders. Remembered now almost wholly by his opera, The Lily of Killarney, he won several successes, not only in that direction, but with sacred oratorios and cantatas. Ho left besides some purely orchestral music which is still occasionally played. The Lily of Killarney is a capital story of Irish life, based on the play, The Colleen Bawn by Boucicault, which many listeners must have seen.
POSTERITY may possibly remember Boito best as the author of more than one of the libretti for Verdi's Operas. He was none the less a distinguished composer himself, and when in 1803 Cambridge University decided to honour one representative musician from each of the chief European countries, it was Boito who was mado Doctor of Music as representative of Italy.
Oxford University also made him an honorary Doctor of Music afterwards.
FOR many generations of French Opera it was essential that there should be a generous innings arranged for the corp8 de ballet, and Opera plots, to be entirely successful, always had to give opportunities for the introduction of a full-sized Banet. In Romeo and Juliet it takes the form of an open-air fete in the garden of Capulot's house at Verona. The garden is gaily thronged with guests, and at first pedlars move about among them with jewels for sale. The first dance is, accordingly, a ' Jewel Dance.' Then villagers appear from the surrounding country with garlands and baskets of flowers, so that the next number of the ballet is a ' Flower Waltz.' It is followed by a number for two solo dancers, a country bride and bridegroom. It is called ' Dance of the Fiances, An Invitation.' Another solo dance comes next—' Dance of the Veiled Damsel'—and the Ballet comes to a boisterous end with a ' Gipsy Dance.'
