A Light Symphony Concert: The Wireless Symphony Orchestra

Sun 13^th Jan 1929, 15:30 on 5XX Daventry

Conducted by HERMAN SCHERCHEN

ORCHESTRA
Suite, 'The Animals' Carnival'...Saint- Saens
Introduction and Royal March of the Lion; Hens and Cocks ; Wild Asses ; Tortoises ; The Elephant; Kangaroos; Aquarium; Personages with Long Ears; The Cuckoo in the Depth of the Woods ; Aviary ; Pianists ; Fossils ; Tho Swan ; Finale
AMONG modem compositions of a sportive character by serious musicians none perhaps is more thorough-going in this respect than Saint-Saens' Carnival of Animals. Other masters have perpetrated at various times mild and furtive jokes of what might be called a zoological character. Among such may be recalled the amusing hee-haw introduced by Bach in Phoebus and Pan, the realistic bird notes which always cause a smile in the slow movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and the ass's bray in Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture.
It was left, however, for Saint-Saens to go the whole hog, so to speak, in this Zoological Fantasia now to be heard, and possibly it was with the feeling that such musical high jinks were hardly in keeping with his dignity as a serious composer that he adopted the curious course of forbidding the public performance of the work during his lifetime. He occasionally permitted it to be performed in private, however, for the enjoyment of privileged hearers, and it is on record that one for whose benefit such a performance was arranged was Liszt, who doubtless thoroughly appreciated the wit and humour of the work as well as its more solid musical qualities.
Also it may be noted that one number of the Suite, Le Cygne, was exempted from his general ban by the composer - doubtless he realized that it was far too charming a piece to be kept under lock and key - and in the result it quickly obtained universal popularity.
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The little Suite, which is of course merely a jeu d'esprit and is not to be taken too seriously therefore, is scored for strings, two pianos, flute, piccolo, clarinet, xylophone and harmonica.

VICTOR HELY-HUTCHINSON and BERKELEY MASON (Pianofortes)

RAVEL'S Mother Goose Suite is founded on children's fairy tales, with three at least of which all of us were happily familiar in nursery days. It illustrates in a very happy way the cunning with which Ravel uses his orchestral instruments to give just the impression which he has in mind, and furnishes plentiful evidence also of his keen sense of humour.
Of its several movements, the first is the Pavane (that old-fashioned stately dance) of the Sleeping Beauty.
The second is Hop o' my Thumb, and we can quite clearly follow the boys in fancy, as they wander through the woods looking in vain for the crumbs which they had strewed upon the ground on their outward path, to guide them home again. The birds, listeners will remember, had eaten every one.
The third movement has an Eastern subject, and is bizarre, even startling in places. Its subject is taken from a book by Madame d'Aulnoy, called 'Le Serpentin Vert,' and tells of little creatures who played on instruments made of nutshells and viols of almond husks.
The fourth movement is Beauty and the Beast, and listeners will not fail to notice the eminently characteristic utterances of the latter.
The last movement describes a magic garden, and the quiet charm of its fairy atmosphere is so vivid that the listener must perforce resent the dramatic climax in which the garden vanishes.

VICTOR HELY-HUTCHINSON and BERKELEY MASON
Group of Pieces for Two Pianos

5XX Daventry

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