and The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, Orchestra
Relayed from
THE GRAND HOTEL, EASTBOURNE
MARGARET WILKINSON (Soprano)
BIZET, known and loved the wide world over as the composer of Carmen had, among his many great gifts, a particularly happy knack of lending his music what is called ' local colour.' The warm, sensuous Southern atmosphere which pervades Carmen unmistakably, can be felt no less surely in the music which he wrote for Daudet's play L'Arlesienne, music which, in the form of two Suites, is now letter known than the play itself.
The Suites are scored for a very big orchestra, and it is interesting in these days when the Saxophone is familiar to most listeners as the provider of unpleasant noises, to note that Bizet introduced it here and gave it some prominent and beautiful passages to play.
AH fors e lui' is one of the best known and most universally popular of all the Verdi arias and is sung in the first Act of La Traviata by the heroine Violetta.
Guests have been in her salon, making merry, and Alfred, in whose arms she dies at the end of the opera, after all the obstacles to their wedding have been overcome too late, has sung a merry drinking song. Meditating on the love which he has declared for her, she repeats the melody of his song, and then, suddenly changing, as though doubtful whether so true an affection can come to one like her, she dashes into the brilliant, ' Ever free shall I still hasten madly on from pleasure to pleasure.' ORCHESTRA :
Selection of the Music of Schubert TOM JONES and J. ALLEN BYFIELD :