(Section E)
Led by MARIE WILSON
Conducted by JULIUS HARRISON
HENRY CUMMINGS (baritone)
Julius Harrison , one of our leading conductors, received his musical education at the Midland Institute of Music under Sir Granville Bantock. He has written many compositions among which two of the most important orchestral works are to be heard this evening.
The Rhapsody for baritone and orchestra was first performed at Hastings Musical Festival under Joseph Lewis. The poem is by Walt Whitman and it tells of a father and child on the sea-shore at night. The child is frightened by the black clouds that obscure the stars. The father comforts his child and explains that the stars will always endure, and that, beyond them, there is something more immortal still.
The theme of Julius Harrison 's latest work, ' Cornish Holiday Sketches ' for string orchestra originated, so the composer tells us, on a tin whistle during a holiday spent in the Land's End district in August 1935. The Sketches represent various episodes of his holiday, together with a few personal allusions that call for no explanation. It should be added, however, that ' Roland ' is an elderly Morris coupe and the ' Cardinal's Procession ' refers to a dramatised version of ' The Jackdaw of Rheims ', performed in full moonlight on the cliffs at Porthcumo.