Elementary French

Arranged by the PEOPLE'S CONCERT SOCIETY in co-operation with the B.B.C. Second Concert of the Fourth Series
THE WOOD SMITH QUARTET-GEORGE STRATTON (First Violin); JESSIE STEWART ; 'ALICE GRASSIE (Viola) and JOHN FRANCIS ('Cello)
First Part devoted to music by JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)
Quartet for Strings in D Minor, Op. 69 (The Farmyard)
Slow Movement; Finale-Quick Movement
Movement from Quartet in C Major, Op. 70 (The Emperor)
Variations on the Austrian Hymn
SECOND PART of the programme will include miscellaneous items, the titles of which will be given out by the announcer.

Songs by Arthur Wynn;
' The Lost Shrew Mice' (M. Braidwood ); ' William Below Stairs' (Richmal Crompton )

ASSOCIATION, relayed from Whitworth Hall , Manchester. Speakers: THE PRESIDENT OF THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION, The Right Hon. Lord HEWART OF BURY, P.C., LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND, and The Bishop of Man
CHESTER

FRANK WESTFIELD'S
ORCHESTRA from the Prince of Wales Playhouse, Lewisham

' Seen on the Screen '

' The Housing Problem '

WILLIAM PRIMROSE (Solo Violin)
THE WIRELESS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, conducted by G. O'CONNOR-MORRIS
WHEN Wagner was about twenty-six he visited London on his way from Riga to
Paris, and had a very rough voyage.
The next year lie started work on his Opera, The Flying Dutchman, and the Overture to this work, which has been described as the finest storm music in existence, owes a good deal of its vividness to Wagner's stormy voyage of the year before.
The story of the Dutchman is more or less traditional : it can be traced back to at. least the sixteenth century. A Dutch sailor swears he will sail round the Cape, in the teeth of gales, even though he should sail till Doomsday. The Devil takes him at his word, and he is condemned to sail until (in Wagner's version) he finds a woman willing to share his fate. After many years, lie finds such a self-sacrificing woman, but wishing, in his love for her, to save her from a doom such as his, he leaves her. She, however, throws herself into the water to join him; the spell is broken by her renunciation, and they find rest together.
The Overture is practically an epitome of the opera. A dominating figure is that of the Curse, heard in a strenuous call on the Brass against a quivering, stormy background of Strings. There is a contrasting, prayer-like tune, and also a gay sailor-song, These are all repeated with increasing force towards the end.

SOME of the loveliest music of this century was left us by George Butterworth, who
(like many young English composers) was killed in action in France, in August, 1916. His music tells plainly that he had deep within him the rapture and tranquillity of the English country-side.
Unfortunately the music he left us is little more in bulk than two song - cycles and this orchestral Rhapsody, which are founded on A. E. Housman's poem-cycle, A Shropshire Lad.
The song-cycles arc, of course, settings of certain of the poems,, while the Rhapsody is a sort of epilogue to the song-cycles-a reverie, perhaps, on the whole of A Shropsliire Lad,' but certainly on the songs, more particularly that which is the second poem of the cycle and begins :
'Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing whi.te for Eastertide.

SIR HAMILTON HARTY, who is only forty-seven, has distinguished himself in several departments of musical work.
He first attracted notice as a composer, when he gained two composition prizes in the year 1904-one for a Piano Quintet and the other for his Irish Symphony.
Later, he became known as one of the finest of our accompanists in London, and more recently his post as Conductor of the Halle Orchestra has brought him still wider fame.
His Comedy Overture, first brought forward at a Promenade Concert in 1907, draws some poetic
. inspiration from Browning, the composer has said; but what poem or poems inspired it we do not know.

' Forestalled '

Sonata in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2 (Movements 1 and 2) BEETHOVEN used to work upon a good number of pieces at once, making sketches in his note-books, and altering and re-shaping now one, now another, sometimes starting a work and never finishing it.
In 1802-3 he was writing his Second Symphony, three Violin Sonatas, two sets of Variations, some ' Bagatelles,' and the first two Sonatas of the group of three comprised in Op. 31. -
Of this group the Second Sonata is by far the finest ; indeed, it is one of the best of the whole thirty-two. It was said to be a special favourite of the master, and was frequently played by him in public.
In the First Movement there is a new feature, in the little declamatory ' recitatives ' in slow trme, that several times break in upon the quick themes, with their note of restless anxiety.
The two Main Tunes on which the Movement is built begin, the one at the start of the Movement, and the other with the descending phrasa of six notes (irr the same even rhythm as that of the First Tune), twice repeated, with a rest after the first two statements, and an extension of the phrase at the third time.
II. The Slow Movement is a deeply expressive piece. Its First Main Tune has a brooding tenderness, and the Second (that beginning after the bass drum-beats have gone on for a little, with a scale-run upward by the right hand) is in calmly cheerful mood. This melody and accompaniment is much more in Mozart's style than in that of the rapidly maturing Beethoven. It is a little glance backward, as it were, a bit of probably unconscious homage to his great forbear.

Act III., Scene 2, of Wagner's Opera, ' Die Maestersingers,' performed by the BRITISH NATIONAL OPERA COMPANY
Relayed from the Theatre Royal, Glasgow

conducted by G. O'CONNOR-MORRIS