Programme Index

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' The Rescue of Old Tom the Drake,' from '
Lorna Doone ' (Blackmore)
Soveral Piano Solos, including Gavotte (
Balfour Gardiner ), played by CECIL DIXON ' The Last Raid of Black Bjorn '
—An Adventure Story of the days of King Alfred
(Frank C. Britten )
' Dithering Ditties ' (Dalhousie Young) and other songs sung by FRANKLYN KELSEY

Contributors

Unknown:
Lorna Doone
Unknown:
Balfour Gardiner
Played By:
Cecil Dixon
Unknown:
Frank C. Britten
Sung By:
Franklyn Kelsey

Schubert's Songs
Sung by HELEN HENSCHEL (Soprano)
An die Musik (To Music)
Gretchon am Spinnrade (Margaret at the Spinning
Wheel)
Der Fischer (The Fisherman)
Heidenroslein (Hedge Roses)
Rastlose Liebe (Restless Love)
IN his thirty-one years Schubert set to music over six hundred poems. How many of these songs are commonly sung at concerts ? Probably not a tenth. Not all are masterpieces, but an amazingly large proportion of them have power to move us strongly. It is good to have this week's selection of a score or more, many of them great favourites, and a few less familiar.
For his authors Schubert went to Goethe,
Schiller, William Muller , Frederick Schlegel , and other German poets, besides our own Shakespeare, Scott, Cibber, and Pope.
To Music (the words of which are by Sohober, one of Schubert's earliest friends) is an invocation to the ' divine voice ' to enlighten the darkness of the heart, and to fill the soul with the love of noble things.
The words of Gretchcn am Spinnrade are from
Goethe's Faust. Margaret, left alone, is filled with dread. She recalls her lover's attractions—his eye and the sound of his voice, and lingers lovingly on the thought of his kiss. Here she pauses in her spinning for a moment, and the accompaniment tells how she re-starts her spinning-wheel. She continues her meditation, longing for the bliss denied her.
Der Fischer tells of the surprising thing that happened to a fisher-lad, to whom appeared a mermaid, inviting him to come down beneath the waves and visit her lovely land. Nobody knows what happened, but no mortal eye ever again saw that fisher-boy !
Goethe's tiny poem about the boy who would pluck the wild rose, and so pricked his fingers. may or may not have a moral. Schubert doesn't, trouble about that, but simply wafts us in music a breath of the rose's freshness and beauty.
Rastlose Liebe has its counterpart in Schubert's music, which has an unquiet accompaniment and fails to settle down in any one key until the last page, on which the words' Crown of life, Jov without rest, thou art Love,' are much repeated in the key of C.

Contributors

Sung By:
Helen Henschel
Unknown:
William Muller
Unknown:
Frederick Schlegel

NOBODY has dono more than
Sir Thomas Beecham to provide the British public with grand opera in the grand tradition, and his present scheme for an Imperial League of Opera promises to provide it with more than it has ever yet had. A fuller reference to this subject of his talk tonight will be found on the ' Both Sides of the Microphone ' page.

Contributors

Unknown:
Sir Thomas Beecham

2LO London and 5XX Daventry

Appears in

About this data

This data is drawn from the Radio Times magazine between 1923 and 2009. It shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was subject to change and may not be accurate. More