THE RADIO QUARTET

JAN RALFINI and his BAND
From Caproni's Palais de Danse, Bangor

DAVID JOHN

by Miss PHOENE REDINGTON

TATIANA MAKUSHINA (Soprano)
PHILIP WHITEWAY (Violin)
THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conducted by E. GODFREY BROWN
AT this end of Europe we know very little of Roumanian music; that we know anything at all of it is chiefly due to Georges Enesco. Born in 1881, he studied in Paris and in Vienna, but that insight into the more conventional music of Western Europe has not in any way modified his enthusiasm for the folk songs of his own country. In the exploitation of these he is indeed an enthusiast, and little more need be said of this Rhapsody than that it embodies half a dozen native Roumanian airs. presented without much elaboration, but with a skilful use of the orchestra which makes them into a highly successful piece of concert music.
The tunes have some kinship with the Gipsy element familiar to us in Hungarian music: their strongly rhythmic character is none the less clear evidence of their Slav origin.
(Soloist, PHILIP WHITEWAY)

(Continued)

THE composer has left. it on record that this Suile owes its birth chiefly to Anton Seidl, the conductor. who was the first, to arrange the second, third, and fourth numbers for orchestra. These were, however, afterwards entirely altered by the composer himself, and the first number added. Although all four were originally composed an pianoforte music, they are admirably adapted for performance by an orchestra, in which form they gain a new picturesqueness. The first movement, A Shepherd Boy, is a simple melodious piece, rather like a folk song. In the third movement. Nocturne, the violins have an expressive tune, to a syncopated accompaniment by the lower strings, while the wood-winds suggest bird songs. The last of the four movements, the merry March of the Dwarfs, runs about in away which at once suggests the mischievous little people.