Conductor, B. Walton O'Donnell
Joseph Farrington (bass)

Delibes, like more than one other French composer, wrote both church and theatre music; at one part of his life he held appointments in church and theatre at the same time. Successful in his own lifetime, and distinguished by many of the highest honours which France can offer her citizens, he cherished the ambition of composing serious opera, but it was as a composer of light opera and ballet music that he was most popular and that he is now remembered.
The opera Le Roi l'a Dit is based upon an old-world French subject, and was produced at the Opera Comique in 1873. Though the opera itself was not a great success in Paris, the Overture still holds its place in concert repertoires.

John Herbert Foulds is a Manchester man, and was at one time a member of the Halle Orchestra. In London he has had a good deal of experience as a conductor and as an organiser of concerts. He has written a great deal, and sometimes on an impressive scale, but to a wide public he is known very well as a composer of smaller pieces of great charm. He is perhaps best known to listeners by his popular 'Celtic Lament', with its beautiful but poignant Irish melody, the second of the three pieces forming this suite.

Sir Charles Stanford, besides being one of the greatest teachers of modern times, and an exceptionally busy man as the premier Professor at the Royal College of Music, found time to compose a great deal of music. Much of this has an Irish flavour, as is only natural with a man who had more knowledge than any musician living of the folk-music of his native country. Indeed, the 'Petrie Collection of Irish Music', which he edited, is the standard authority. The tune of 'Father O'Flynn', which Stanford made use of, is an old Irish one of the jig character; the words, as celebrated as the tune itself; are modern and were written by Alfred Perceval Graves, who contributed, in the manner of his predecessor, Thomas Moore, to Irish balladry.

Herman Finch, in spite of the fact that his years do not exceed sixty, has had the experience of a veteran in every activity known to the light opera stage. He must have conducted, at one time or another, in every theatre of note in London, and he is as popular a figure as ever turned his back on an audience in the exercise of his craft. His compositions, mainly of a light order, are numerous and very engaging. Who does not remember his 'In the Shadows', the tune that haunted the country for a year or more and still lives, and his numerous 'Switches', a type of composition which he claims to have invented?