by Miss Grace Young
Played by EDGAR T. COOK
Relayed from Southwark Cathedral
by THE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA OF WALES
S.B. from Cardiff
ELLA GARDNER (Soprano)
CUTHBERT SMITH (Baritone)
Jack Payne and his B.B.C. Dance Orchestra
ALPHONSE DU CLOS and his ORCHESTRA
From THE HOTEL CECIL
' Reuben Ranzo ' and other Songs sung by ARTHUR WYNN
The Story of' Two Noble Knights'
(Marjorie J. Redman )
Pianoforte Solos played by ERNEST LUSH '
Further Hints on ' How to Play Rugby Football' by Captain H. B. T. WAKELAM
; WEATHER FORECAST,
FIRST GENERAL NEWS BULLETIN
BRAHMS' VIOLIN SONATAS
Played by MARJORIE HAYWARD (Violin) and O'CONNOR MORRIS (Pianoforte)
ALL three of the Sonatas for violin and pianoforte which Brahms left can fairly claim to be favourites alike with performers and audiences. They are : all admirably laid out to display the best qualities : of both instruments, and it is often said that the parts might hare been written by a violinist, so well does each ono ' 'play itself,' in the phrase used. by fiddlers. The first was not published until 1880-his forty-seventh year, though we know that when he went to Schumann, with an introduction from Joachim, years earlier. a violin sonata was among the music he took with him. The first, in G Major, is certainly a work which shows him arrived at the full maturity of his powers, and in his most genial and kindly mood. It has the special interest of being closely associated with two of his songs—' Regenlied ' (Song of the Rain) and'Nachklang ' (Echo): the last movement begins with a theme like that used in the song to suggest the dripping rain.
There are three movements. The first begins dreamily with a shy theme in the violin, out of which a more energetic mood soon wakes; the second theme is moro impulsive and soaring, and at the end there is a third, gracious and slight, dying away very softly before a new form of the second theme closes the movement.
The next movement begins very broadly with the pianoforte alone, and after the violin has repeated his theme, there is a more lively section, the stately opening returning after it. The theme begins as though it were to have some kinship with the first movement, but goes on in a much more flowing measure ; it leads in a very natural way into the second theme, and it, in turn, makes way for a very beautiful reminder of the slow movement: a brief echo of it is heard again just before the end.
SUZANNE BERTIN (Soprano)
THE WIRELESS ORCHESTRA
Conducted by JOHN ANSELL
A Musical Jig-Saw - Aston
Overture, 'The Mikado' - Sullivan
WEATHER FORECAST, SECOND
GENERAL NEWS BULLETIN; Local News; (Daventry only) Shipping Forecast and Fat Stock Prices
by LIONEL TERTIS (Viola) and BERKELEY MASON (Pianoforte)
Just as in choirs of the primitive order it used to be the rule that all those who could not sing must sing bass, so the viola in the less efficient orchestras and chamber-music teams is all too often in the hands of those who have failed to surmount the difficulties of the violin. That tho instrument is any easier to play, or that its part need not be played so well, is, of course, nonsense, and for many generations there have been specialists of the violn just as there are of the other instruments.
Tuned a fifth lower than the violin, it is not so big in proportion as that really requires, and that gives it the peculiarly reedy and penetrating quality which is easily distinguished both from violin and from violoncello tone. It can make itself heard through quite a heavy accompaniment, and it blends very beautifully with the other strings.
Although some authorities count it as the oldest member of the violin family, derived from the old viols earlier than its little brother, it had for a long time only a subordinate part in team-music. In the orchestra it had, as a rule, to double either the second violin or the bass, until in the days of Bach and Handel it began to assert its independence and to be given something like the position to which its fine qualities entitle it. But even more in the string quartets of Haydn and afterwards of Mozart, it began to be clear that it might be given solo parts, and since then it has come more and more to the front, and has been more and more cultivated by great players.
Its literature is still somewhat scanty as compared with that of the other strings, and viola players must still rely to a considerable extent on arrangements, as in this programme, of music originally composed for the violin.
SIDNEY KYTE and his CIRO'S CLUB BAND,
From CIRO'S CLUB
