Relayed from the National Museum of Wales
National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)

Svendsen was the son of a Military Band master, and himself held such a post while only in his teens. He had some experience, too, as an orchestral musician, and when only twenty-one, set out on a tour of Sweden and Northern Germany. No great good luck attended him until, two years later, he obtained a grant from Charles XV. to enable him to carry on his studies of the violin. Again misfortune overtook him, and paralysis of one of his hands brought his career as a violinist to an end.
Turning his energies to composition, he produced some quite interesting chamber music and a symphony, travelling in Denmark, Scotland, and Norway, introducing his own works. For two years, 1868 until the war of 1870, he was in Paris, and thereafter his life was a succession of journeys, in the course of which he held posts as conductor in many centres of musical activity. He enjoyed the friendship of the greatest men in the world of music, and had opportunities of hearing many of his own works performed under the best possible conditions.
Like most of his music, the 'Carnival in Paris' is cosmopolitan rather than specialty Scandinavian; it bears the impress of a sturdy individuality and, like all his work, is marked by very careful, tidy craftsmanship. Owing its origin to the composer's happy experience of the gay city at the time when the second Empire was flourishing, it is a lively, highly effective piece of music which is happily described by its own title.
The chief tune seems at first unwilling to let itself be heard in full, but emerges anon in a very merry, bustling guise. It is succeeded by a sprightly, dainty tune, one which undergoes many transformations as the different instruments toss it about. It appears later in a much slower and more suave form, to return presently in its original mood of merriment. The different tunes are used singly and together in the most effective way, and the Carnival grows more and more boisterous as it proceeds, to end in a regular outbreak of mirth and bustle.

(to 14.00)

S.B. from Swansea

In this talk Mrs. Warner-Staples, will tell of the beasts, birds, and flowers in the country round Grahamstown. Locust birds, looking in the distance like Persian Sheep, feed in huge flocks on the veldt. They are protected by law, and so they have become quite fearless.

Relayed from the Carlton Restaurant

(See London)

(9.30 Local Announcements)

A True Londoner's Night
(N.B.-A real Londoner is one born and bred within the sound of Bow Bells)
The Station Orchestra
Conducted by Warwick Braithwaite

Although this Overture is already a quarter of a century old, the London of which it gives so bright a picture is very much the 'Town' as we know it today-many-sided, many-coloured, carefree and haphazard, but yet with a thought of its own dignity. And the picture is no doubt the more true, embodying, as it does, the impressions of one who neither claims nor aspires to be a Londoner himself.
It is dedicated, and the words are surely among the most gracious and kindly which stand upon any title-page- 'To my many friends, the Members of British Orchestras.'
The opening is eloquent of the crowded streets - the bustle of every day. Quite soon there is an episode descriptive of the more serious and dignified side of London's character, and, after a return of the gay opening, we hear a theme which portrays two young lovers. London urchins are then cunningly presented by a merry doubling of the 'Nobilmente' theme (London's dignity) in the very way in which Wagner's 'Apprentices' make fun of the stately Master's theme. A new episode is a Military Band heard first afar off, drawing near, and passing by with blatant pomp and brilliance, fading again into the distance. Again a little later, the young lovers are assailed by band-music - this time a rough-and-ready street band. Its well-meant, but dissonant, efforts are heard in a grotesque version of the first band time. A quieter section follows; the lovers have found sanctuary, and only echoes of the busy streets can reach them. What follows is repetition of these episodes, and the Overture finishes in the gay mood in which it began.

Some Showers
A Cockney Play by W. Pett Ridge

Mixtures
A Cameo Sketch by W.P. Thomas
Maurice Fitzgerald is an actor, down on his luck; Harry Hampton wants to hear him recite and gives him jellied eels as a bribe.

(to 23.00)