Relayed from WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE DAVENTRY QUARTET and DOROTHY
SMITHARD Contralto) ; BERNARD Ross (Baritone)
(4.0 Time Signal, Daventry only)
'Struwwelpeter,' set to music by Geoffrey Shaw, and sung by Eva Neale.
'Tony's Pool' - another gnome story by Mabel Marlowe, told by Marjorie Allen.
Hints on 'Tortoises - and other Pets - and how to treat them,' by Captain Fergus McCann
TH E picturesque, the colourful and the exotic have always appealed to Mr. Golding ; he has travelled persistently on their trail. and their discovery has evoked much of his best writing. Readers of such books as 'Sunward' and 'Sicilian Noon' will realize how Palestine, the land of a hundred histories, the grave of so many civilizations, must appeal to an observer of Mr. Golding's powers.
7.0 Mrs. CLEMENT PARSONS:
'The Village Library, New Style'
THE SUITES OF HANDEL
Played by GERDA NETTE
by MAVIS BENNETT (Soprano)
THERE is something modiæval and romantic in the Polish character, a quixotism dating from the days when John Sobieski saved Europe from the Turks and exemplified in our own tima by the Polishinvasion of Russia in 1920 and the doggedness of the slow retreat which followed when the Poles believed that they were saving Europe from Russia. Warsaw is a romantic capital -and it is with this side of its life that
Mr. Gielgud will talk tonight. He is of Polish descent himself, and frequently visits the country of his blood. A novel by Mr. Gielgud. with Poland for its setting, is appearing early next year.
Relayed from the Queen's Hall, London
Sir HENRY J. WOOD and his SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Mme. AKSAROVA (Soprano)
FRANK TITTERTON (Tenor)
STEPHEN WEARING (Solo Pianoforte)
OPERA-COMPOSING usually comes fairly late in a country's musical development.
In Russia it came early, and Glinka, the pioneer of art music in that country, quite naturally went for the plots of his Operas to national fairy-lore, legend and history. Russian is based on one of the many quaintly extravagant, fantastic Russian fairy tales, about lordly humans. fairv folk, poets, dwarfs and such like. The Overture is a bright. energetic and straightforward prelude to their exciting doings.
MOZART'S funeral piece, written on the death of two well-known Freemasons in 1785. is based on a Gregorian psalm-tune. It wifl be remembered that Mozart, a strong Freemason, founded his Magic Flute on Masonic ideas.
ALMOST a hundred performances of this,
Symphony were given within a year of its production. It is dedicated to the great Conductor, Richter, and it was he who gave its first performance at one of the famous Manchester Halle Concerts nineteen years ago.
Since the end of the nineteenth century we have been led generally to expect some literary or pictorial basis for orchestral works, some ' programme ' or at least a descriptive title. Elgar has given us nothing beyond the suggestion that in it we see a Composer's outlook on life, and in the light of that interpretation this Symphony has always been considered highly personal. To most people it conveys a sense of spirituality, sometimes of longing, sometimes of consolation. There are four Movements.
(10.0 Time Signal, Daventry only)
(Continued)
Conducted by the COMPOSER
THIS piece was composed for performance by the massed Bands at Wembley on Empire Day two years ago. It is built upon a number of somewhat unfamiliar tunes, the first of which, Tadg bui (Yellow Tim) was taken down by the Composer from a singer of folk-songs in County Cork. An Antrim tune, and snatches of The Green Ribbon, lead to the appearance, as a Euphonium solo, of Along the Ocean shore. The Clarinets next start a ' chorus Jig ' and a Pipers' Dance is heard a little later. Two more tunes are used. and then the last section is made out of two 'Reels.
ORCHESTRA Amrain na NGaedeal, ' Songs of the Gael ' (A Gaelic Fantasy) - B. Walton O'Donnell
AKSAROVA Melodie - Rachmaninov
Tarr - Vassilenko
Sunset - Tchaikovsky
FRANK TITTERTON 0 Moon of my delight - Liza Lehmann
The Sun God - Jaines
ORCHESTRA The Wedding March ('A Midsummer Night's Dream ') - Mendelssohn