by Victors at The Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, Liverpool, 1929
The Cory Silver Band
Conducted by J. G. Dobbing
Friedrich von Flotow, born in 1812, belonged to a noble family, and was destined for the Diplomatic Service. In the course of his training for that career he went at the age of fifteen to Paris, at a time when the whole artistic world there was full of activity and interest. In the society circles in which the young man found himself, music, literature, and painting were all zealously cultivated, and Flotow very soon discovered that he possessed musical gifts of a high order himself. He accordingly undertook a thorough course of study in composition, and before he was twenty was producing original music. His first success was Stradella, an opera which is still given abroad, although in this country it has never caught on; the Overture still figures in programmes here, as elsewhere.
Martha was his next work. Originally a ballet, it achieved a very wide popularity when rewritten as an opera, and to this day remains his favourite work. He had a real gift of light, attractive melody, and that rather rare gift, a sense of musical humour. In spite of a rather sentimental turn in some of his tunes, they are redeemed by lively and sparkling rhythm, and his best pieces are apparently destined to have a lasting place among music of the light-opera order.
The scene of Martha is laid in Richmond, and an old-fashioned hiring fair is the central point of the story. A great lady, bored by her Court life, allows herself to be hired as servant to a young farmer, with whom she falls in love. Her affection is returned, and the apparent difference in their station leads to complications, but at the end it is discovered that the young farmer is really a nobleman, and the opera ends happily with their betrothal.
(Soloist, T. Trotman)
