(From Birmingham)
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO AUGMENTED
ORCHESTRA
(Leader, FRANK CANTELL)
Conducted by JOSEPH LEWIS
SMETANA, like Mozart, appeared as a child prodigy pianist; he also played the violin and composed, before the tale of his years had reached double figures. Like Beethoven, he suffered what is probably the gravest misfortune for a musician; he became totally doaf in his last years. In a way of which neither of these masters thought, however, he was an ardent patriot, and gave his country's music a place in the world which it had not enjoyed before. His biggest purely orchestral work was in honour of his native land, and called comprehensively My Country.
It is a series of six symphonic poems, of which this is the fourth, and no more need be said of it than that it illustrates in a happy way the pastoral side of Bohemia, and that it includes a rustic merrymaking. In it can be heard, too, the rhythm of the polka, the national dance for which Smetana wished to claim as important a place in music as Chopin had for the dances of his native country.

by LESLIE ENGLAND

Relayed from Carr's Lane Congregational Church,
Birmingham
Order of Service:
Hymn, ' Lord of our life and God of our salvation
(Congregational Hymnary, No. 211)
Lesson Prayers
Address by the Rev. F. TOWNLEY LORD , D.D., of Queen's Road Baptist Church, Coventry
Hymn, ' Nearer, my God, to Thee ' (C.H., No.
490)
Benediction

(From Birmingham)
Appeal on behalf of the Birmingham Animal Welfare Society, by the Secretary,
Mrs. E. BLANCKENSEE

STEPHEN BERGMANN
(Pianoforte)
THE CATTERALL STRING
QUARTET:
ARTHUR CATTERALL (1st Violin); LAURENCE TURNER (2nd Violin) ; BERNARD SHORE (Viola) ; JOHAN C. HOCK (Violoncello)
Quartet in C, (K. 465)
Mozart Adagio -Allegro; Andante cantabile; Allegrotto; Allegro molto
THE principal tune in the first movement is very easily recognized. It appears at the outset on the first violin, leaping upwards a seventh and running down in a little scale. The two first notes are played without accompaniment, as they are again when the viola repeats the phrase immediately after the first violin. The second main tune, a much more lively one, beginning with a downward triplet on the last beat of the bar, is also introduced by the first violin. The movement is orthodox in form and quite straightforward.
The slow movement comes next, beginning very softly and almost solemnly on all four strings together ; but soon the first violin, and almost, immediately after him the others, have a more sprightly melody, and throughout the movement, which is quite short, these two come in turns, one with the other.
The next movement, a Minuet and Trio, has no special feature. The first and last sections are in major, and the middle one in minor, the second violin beginning the running phrase which the first answers.
The first violin begins the bustling last movement again with a merry little tune which the second violin repeats with him. Much of the effect of this breezy movement is made by sudden changes from very loud to very soft tone, a device which Beethoven uses effectively immediately before the second chief theme appears.