ASTRA DESMOND (Contralto)
THE KUTCHER Trio :
SAMUEL KUTCHER (Violin), CEDRIC SHARPE
(Violoncello), REGINALD PAUL (Pianoforte)

ONE of the interesting things about Delius' music is that, however large or small the forces for which he is writing, he contrives to produce the same softly pictorial effect; listeners to this comparatively slight piece would have no difficulty in recognizing it as by the same composer as, for instance, 'Summer Night on the River.' Listeners have, moreover, by now heard enough of his music to realize that although he is in all the best ways a modern, and one who is very much a law unto himself, there is nothing in his music which is difficult to understand and enjoy, and certainly nothing to startle even the old-fashioned music-lover.

MAX REGER was a prolific composer in almost every known form, and though many of his
larger works are as yet but little known, his chamber music and songs, especially, are now widely recognized as among the best things which Germany has given us since Brahms. But for the greater part of his short life he was involved in one conflict after another with most sections of the musical world, and only in his last years did anything like recognition of his great gifts come to him. He was not one who cared for honours and rewards, and though, in his latter years these were accorded him in generous measure, it probably meant far more to him that the best intelligences of the world of music had begun to recognize him as, above everything else, an immensely sincere composer with a profound reverence for beauty.
This strong and vigorous Trio is in the usual four movements and, full as it is of a truly youthful spirit of vitality, its departures from tradition are much more apparent than real. The first movement has a few bars of solemn Introduction before it breaks into the vigorous and agitated main section; it is full of episodes of the most tender delicacy, contrasting strongly with the boldness of its quicker parts.
The slow movement, simple and eloquent, ia for the most part a solo for the violin, though the other instruments do share in the melody from time to time. The Scherzo which comes next, in the conventional form, with a contrasting Trio in the middle, is vivacious and very short; and the last movement is a strenuous Allegro, with a principal theme which can easily be recognized from its beginning with the same note repeated three times. As in the first movement, there is a more sauve melody breaking in on it more than once.