Conducted by JOHN ANSELL

DJAMILEH, a one-act light Opera, was the first work for the stage that Bizet wrote after the war of 1870. It was not a success, for though Bizet felt that he had been happily inspired, he realised that, as he said, the piece was ' too far removed from the conventions of the Opera Comique.' 'Whatever happens,' he added, , I am content to return to the path that I should never have left, and that I shall never forsake again.'
The Opera was withdrawn after only ten performances.
The plot of Djamileh concerns tho love of an Egyptian girl for Haroun, a profligate of Cairo, who purchases a new slave every month. After appearing before him as one of these slaves, Djamileh wins his favour.

DELIBES made his name as a successful composer of Ballets and short Comic
Operas. Sylvia was the successor to his extremely successful first Ballet Coppelia, but there was a gap of six years between the two, for the Franco-German war of 1870 broke out a few weeks after Coppelia was produced.
Tchaikovsky, who wrote some admirable Ballet music himself, once said of Sylvia. My Swan Lake is poor stuff compared to that.' BRETON (1850-1923) was a Spaniard, who rose from a very humble place in life to be a leading Conductor and Director of the Royal Conservatoire of Music at Madrid. He began at the age of ten to earn his living by playing in cafe orchestras. Later, when lie became well known as a Conductor, he introduced many new works to Spain, not without difficulty. There was a good deal of artistic conservatism in his day, if we may judge from the fact that Saint-Saens' Vance of Death (Danse Macabre) was frowned upon by a prominent Orchestra.
He worked hard to establish a Spanish National Opera, writing and lecturing on the subject and composing many works dealing with sides of life familiar to his countrymen. HAMISH MACCUNN'S untimely death in 1916, at the age of forty-eight, deprived us of a composer who responded finely to the influences of his nationality. His Tone Poems based on Scots subjects, and his Operas, Jeanie Deans and Diarmid, show delicacy, insight, and a power of graphic expression. His Concert Overture, Land of the Mountain and the Flood, written while MacCunn was a student at the Royal College of Music, has as a motto the familiar passage from Scott's Lady of the Lake, beginning, 'O Caledonia, stern and wild, meet nurse for a poetic child! '
The typically Scots First Main Tune comes at once, on the 'Cellos.
A new Clarinet phrase leads, through various keys, to the Second Main Tune, like an old love-ballad .
These subjects are worked up into a romantic and exhilarating celebration in music of the beauties of the composer's native land. HENRY HADLEY (born 1871) is one of the most prolific American composers of to-day. He has written Symphonies, Operas, Cantatas, Chamber pieces and many other kinds of music-over a hundred works in all. A number of these have won prizes offered by American patrons of music.

: 'The English as Seen by Bourget'

Selections by the RADIO QUARTET. Kanga Comes to the Forest (A. A. Milne)

directed by SIDNEY FIRMAN

: 'Next Week's Music '- with Illustrations

FIRST GENERAL News BULLETIN
" Mr. C. A. LEWIS : Peking : The Water
Dragons '

Arranged by the Rt. Hon. J.R. Clynes, M.P.

Mr. J.R. Clynes, who has chosen the third of the series of special programmes arranged by the London Station to give 'outsiders' a chance of expressing their views, is one of the most prominent figures in the Labour Party's Front Bench. He has represented the Platting Division of Manchester since 1906; from 1918 to 1919 he was Food Controller, and from 1921 to 1922 Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. When the Labour Government came into office, in 1924, Mr. Clynes became Lord Privy Seal and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. He is also President of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers.

: 'Has Rugby Football
Improved ? '

Sung by Vivienne Chatterton
Ich schwebe (I Tremble), Op. 48
Freundliche Vision (Kindly Vision), Op. 48
Sie wissen nicht (They Know Not), Op. 49
Monolog der Marschallin (Princess Von Werdenberg's Monologue), Op. 59
Schlechtes Wetter (Stormy Weather), Op. 69
Einerlei (Unchanging), Op. '69 '

ICH SCHWEBE is very Straussian in one respect, for the top part of the accompaniment moves in 'sixths' (chords of two notes, six scale-degrees apart) nearly all the way through. 'Thirds' and 'sixths' are a mannerism in Strauss; but he does not as a rule adopt it so pointedly as in this song. Hero the high swinging sixths are probably suggested by the words: 'Like an angel I seem to swing, my foot scarcely touching earth ; for in my ears is the ring of my love's good-bye.'
Freundliche Vision is a day-dream of what might. be, and, if the lovers' hopes come true, will be. It is a vision of their country cottage. The music is free in its harmonic effects but simple in its general design, and it aptly reflects the happy dream of the poet.
Sie wissen nicht - 'They know not how wonderful they are; neither the nightingale nor my snow-white maiden.' The nightingale is much in evidence in the Piano accompaniment. A sudden change of key introduces an upward-sweeping tune, in Straussian thirds, that seems to belong to the snow-white maiden.
The Monologue from' the Opera 'Der Rosenkavalier' ('The Rose-Cavalier') contains the moral of this enchanting Comedy-Grand-Opera from Vienna. Middle-ago must yield to youth. The wealthy, still beautiful but slightly passee. Princess knows (at the end of Act I.) that she cannot hope to hold her young lover if youth should enter into rivalry with her. In this Monologue she bewails her coming loneliness- not without dignity and resignation.
Schlechtes Wetter is also a monologue. The poem is by Heine. A young man looks out through his window into the rain and darkness. A solitary wandering light reveals a little old mother on her way to buy flour and eggs and butter ; no doubt she intends to make a cake for that great daughter of hers. The daughter sits at home in the easy chair blinking at the fire, her golden hair falling about her sweet face.
The music is descriptive and humorous. Note the homely waltz tune that comes in with the ' Mehl und Eier und Butter.'

Local Announcements

by the Rt. Hon. J. R.
CLYNES, M.P. (Continued.)

The Savoy Orpheans and The Sylvians from the Savoy Hotel