After St. Andrew's Day, St. David's Day and St. Patrick's Day have been celebrated on their respective anniversaries, we sometimes institute a movable feast day in honour of all the Celtic countries.

National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)

John Herbert Foulds, a native of Manchester, began his musical career as a member of the Halle Orchestra. Since leaving it, he has had considerable experience as conductor and concert organizer, holding such posts as Musical Director at the London Central Y.M.C.A., and conducting the University of London Musical Society. He has been a prolific composer, though comparatively few of his bigger works are as yet at all well known. The one which has hitherto made the greatest impression is his World Requiem, a choral piece en a very large scale, produced at the Albert Hall on Armistice Day, 1923. He has invented, or at any rate imported into English music, some quite new orchestral effects by the use of quarter tones, an innovation which presents difficulties no less to the performers than to the hearers. Here, however, he is in lighter vein, almost in holiday mood, turning as he has more than once done, to Celtic lore for inspiration. In this Suite he does achieve some resemblance to the Celtic muse as far as anyone may hope to do who is not himself a Gaol.

In these two settings of Folk Songs, Percy Grainger shows not only his keen interest in the old lore of the Motherland-he is a Colonial by birth-but the very deft hand which he has in arranging light-hearted and good-going tunes. The first is by now one of the best-known tunes in the world, thanks to its many enthusiastic arrangers. The second is made up of two traditional Irish Reel tunes-the one which gives the piece its name, and another called 'Temple Hill.'

One of the present-day Scottish composers who has a keen interest in the folk tunes of his native country-many of them tunes which would be rapidly disappearing from mankind's knowledge were it not for such enthusiasts-David Stephen is by no means unknown to listeners as a composer. Orchestral and chamber music, as well as songs, of his, have several times been broadcast, and he is known as the scholarly editor of one of the best editions of Scottish songs in existence.
All his work has been done in Scotland; he has held a number of posts as organist, choral conductor, and teacher, and for many years was much in request for organ recitals. In 1905 he became Director of the Music of the Carnegie Trust.