A programme interpreting in music the spirit, of Robert Browning's poem, from which the lines quoted below are taken; 'By the Fireside'.
The Augmented Station Orchestra, conducted by Warwick Braithwaite
The Cartref Quartet: Margaret Wilkinson (Soprano), Elsie Duddridge (Contralto), David Evans (Tenor), Reginald Davies (Baritone)
In the 'nineties, when this work was new to London, it was once performed at the Queen's Hall under the title The Afternoon of a Young Gazelle, and elder concert-goers still smile as they recall this 'howler'. It is not a fawn, but a faun that is in question, a sort of minor god Pan, a rural half-deity, the upper part that of a man, with horns, and the lower part that of a goat, with hoofs and tail.
The faun is resting slumberously in the heat of the day and half dreaming. There drift through his mind thoughts of the nymphs he has pursued with his affections; he reflects on the woods, the pools and the meadows where he has sought them, and, at last, vaingloriously and sacrilegiously, he wonders whether the time may not come when upon the elopes of Etna, he may perhaps meet the great goddess Venus herself. With a start he realizes his sacrilege, and dreads punishment.
This piece of Debussy's exhibits at its highest development his 'impressionistic' manner. It is all very vague and indefinite and hazy, as the picture of a summer afternoon should be. It glows with sunlight and palpitates with heat. Its orchestral colouring is wonderfully delicate; its thought extremely poetical.
Edith Penville
'The lights and shades made up a spell'
This scene in the second piece is one of two from Lenan's Faust that Liszt took as the basis for a work.
Faust and Mephistopheles, taking a walk abroad, come to a village inn, where the folk are dancing after a wedding. Faust instantly falls in love with one of the girls, and Mephistopheles urges him to ask her for a dance. Taking a fiddle from one of the players, the Evil One declares he will show them how to play. His wild playing sets everyone dancing madly, Faust with his lady amongst them. In the midst of the excitement the two dance out through the open door and slip away to the woods, pursued by the sound of Mephistopheles' demonie fiddling.
