by EDGAR T. COOK
Relayed from Southwark Cathedral

LAST winter Miss Rhoda Power broadcast an interesting series of talks on ' Village
Life in Olden Times.' In the series that she begins this afternoon she will deal in turn with the gentry, the religious and learned, the country people and the commercial classes, devoting several talks to each section. Listeners will find at the end of her course that they have gradually built up for themselves a very* convincing picture of the state of life and the mental and physical environment of a boy or girl in mediaeval England.

THE first of these ' Great Stories is that of Persephone (or Proserpine, as the Romans later called her), who in Greek myth was the bride of Pluto, the monarch of Hell.

The London Radio Dance Band, directed by Sidney Firman. The Royal Automobile Club Dance Band, from the Royal Automobile Club.

THE Atlantic flyer does not watch the weather reports, nor the cotton-merchant the first estimates of the Nile flood, more intently than the woman of fashion-and that includes most women-watches for the first hints and forecasts of Fashion's newest decrees. Miss Rose has access to inside information, and her talk will be a particularly interesting one.

Piano Solos by Cecil Dixon . Songs by Julian Livingston . The Story of the First Rabbit ' (F. G. G.). ' Keeping Fit '-how to get the best out of Life, by George Nicol

By PATTMAN
From THE ASTORIA CINEMA

ORGAN RECITAL . by EDGAR T. COOK
Relayed from Southwark Cathedral

A Ballad for Chorus and Orchestra
Poem by WILLIAM COWPER
Set to Music by FREDERIC H. COWEN
Followed by:— 'THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN'
A Cantata for Tenor, Bass, Chorus and Orchestra
Poem by ROBERT BROWNING
Set to Music by HUBERT PARRY
THE STATION CHORUS. Chorus Master,
S. H. WHITTAKER
THE AUGMENTED STATION ORCHESTRA, conducted by T. H. MORRISON
S.B. from Manchester

THE ENGLISH SINGERS:
FLORA MANN ; NELLIE CARSON ; LILIAN BERGER ; NORMAN STONE ; NORMAN NOTLEY ;
CUTHBERT KELLEY
THE INTERNATIONAL STRING QUARTET:
ANDRE MANGEOT and BORIS PECKER (Violins) ; FRANK HOWARD (Violin) ; HERBERT WITHERS
('Cello)
THERE was chamber music in England before
Purcell's day, but none so fresh and striking as his. Purcell's was an inquiring, experimental mind, capable of singularly bold and beautiful thoughts, as everyone must realize who has heard, for instance, Dido's Lament, from Dido and Eneas, an air that has frequently been broadcast. Though chamber music for the family of Viols (precursors 'of the Violin tribe) was written in Tudor and Elizabethan times, its range, emotional and technical, was not very wide. In the days of the Restoration it fell into disfavour, for Charles II and his contemporaries cared for nothing very serious or in the least complex. In Purcell's Fantasias the composer revived the chamber music style, and though he did not live long enough, and had insufficient capable followers, to make it highly populal here, he left us some delightful works for concerted strings. A number of these has recently been published, and we are now to hear one of them.
, pERHAPS most people remember
Charles Wood as the composer of that stirring song
Ethiopia Saluting the Colours, and of many part-songs. Besides writing a great quantity of music, he was famous for many years as a teacher. He taught some of our leading present-day composers, such as Vaughan Williams ; and in 1924 he succeeded Stanford as Professor of Music at Cambridge University. He held the post only two years, dying in 1926. Like Stanford, he was an Irishman who settled in England, and who collected and edited a great many beautiful Irish tunes. One at least of his String Quartets used an Irish melody as the basis for Variations.
He began to write chamber music when he was a student at the Royal College (about 1885), and though he suppressed a number of works written in what may be called his ' middle period,' there are several Quartets belonging to the last fourteen years of his life that might well be more frequently played.
IN the small amount of chamber music
Vaughan Williams has written we find a sensitive, original, personal quality, and a freedom of harmony that often leads to rugged effect, though never to ugliness.
There are four Movements in this Quartet-a bold and tuneful opening Movement, a graceful Minuet and Trio, a flowing slow Movement beginning in five-time, with a middle section in three-time that achieves a strong climax, and a lively Rondo as Finale.