Mr. C. H. CUNNINGHAM : Hungary ' MR, CHARLES CUNNINGHAM , who knows Hungary well, is preparing a book on that country which, is soon to be published. In this talk ho describes the St. Stephen Festival at Budapest. St. Stephen, who is the national hero of Hungary, was its first king. He was originally the' son of the Duko of Hungary, and. Hungary became a kingdom under Stephen in the year 998. when he quelled a pagan reaction. His position as king was soon afterwards confirmed by the Pope. Stephen was the type of the soldier-Christian ;he spent his life in fighting paganism and Christianizing his kingdom by force of arms. The Festival of St. Stephen is the great event of the Hungarian year; peasants from all over Hungary collect in Budapest in national costume. Mr. Cunningham will give some idea of the of the scene.
The Commodore Grand Orchestra
Directed by Joseph Muscant
From The Commodore Theatre, Hammersmith
Rkcki'TionTust
Mr. NORMANH. BAYNES,
' Empires, Movementsand Nations—
Story IV, Greece '
Miss RHODA POWER : ' The Stalled Ox '
(Ruthenian)
Mademoiselle CAMILLE VIERE : French Reading — IV, (Selections from An Anthology of French Verse : From
. Villon to Verlaine '
(This book by Ritchie and Moore,is published by Dent, price 3/6)
MURRAY LAMBERT (Violin) ESTHER FISHER (Pianoforte)
MOSCHETTO and his ORCHESTRA
From THE DORCHESTERHOTEL
SCHUMANN PIANOFORTE MUSIC
Played by FRANK MANNHEIMER
Six Intermezzi , Op. 4
SCHUMANN began his musical career at a very early age: when he made his first appearance in public as a pianist he was such a little fellow that he had to stand up at the keyboard instead of sitting down. But it was intended that he should become a lawyer and he had reached the age of twenty before deciding to take up music as his profession. Along with poetrv. it had been his chief interest in life, and his studies in law, although nominally carried on for three years, were sadly neglected in consequence. Having taken the plunge, he set himself with tremendous zeal to become a front rank artist, and, as a short cut to .mastery of the instrument, invented a device for strengthening the weak fingers. There are no short cats, as Schumann discovered to his cost; the invention completely crippled one of his fingers, so that all thought of a pianist's career had to be abandoned. He was able to play all his life, but with only nine fingers instead of ten, a handicap which he rightly regarded as insuperable. He turned his attention instead to composition and literature, combining the two with a success which has very seldom been achieved by any one man.
In spite of his misfortune, he knew the pianoforte extremely well, and his music for it exploits its resources in a way which no former composer had thought of doing. He obtains effects of richness and fulness which had not before been dreamed of ; many of his pianoforte pieces have almost the bigness of orchestral effect.
FRANK MANNHEIMER 'S first visit to
Europe was in the ranks of the American
Army during the War. It was at the very outset of his career that music had thus to be laid aside, but he was fortunately able to return to it, and when ho next came from the United States he had already a firmly established place of his own as 0 concert pianist. In the lust few years ho has often played in London, as well as in Berlin and many other European cities, and, both in old and new music, has shown himself to be an artist o'f power and subtlety. He was chosen as the representative American pianist to join the Brosa Quartet in Bloch's Quintet at the International Festival at Siena, in 1928.
Miss V. SACKVILLE-WEST
BOOKS
By Miss V. SACKVILLE-WEST
Professor ARNOLD PLANT (Sir Ernest Cassel Professor of Commerce, London School of Economics) : ' Some Effects of Technical Change
—II'
, at 9.0
WEATHER FORECAST, SECOND GENERAL NEWS
BULLETIN
ELEANOR KAUFMAN (Soprano)
THELMA REISS-SMITH (Violoncello)
JOHN IRELAND (Pianoforte) THELMA REISS-SMITH came from her native Plymouth to the Royal College of Music in London at the age of only thirteen, as winner of an open scholarship, and even as a student made a name for heiself as a 'cellist of exceptional powers. Immediately on leaving College she was engaged for a tour throughout England. making a great impression wherever she played ; her performance of the Haydn Concerto at the Petersfield Festival was an outstanding success. But no one who heard her play the Elgar Concerto at the Prom on October 1, this year, needs to be told that here is a young artist of rare gifts, one for whom a distinguished future is clearly in store.
HER name, and the versatility with which she can sing in other languages than her own, notably German and French, might easily persuade listeners, that Eleanor Kaufman was a visitor to our shores, rather than one of ourselves. But she is English by birth and tradition, and studied her art in this country, ton, winning a place for herself among our own singers under her maiden name of Neville-White. After her marriage, to another good Briton, she was an absentee from the concert platform and from B.B.C. programmes for some time, coming to the microphone again only )ast August.
AMBROSE'S BLUE LYRES, from the DORCHESTER
HOTEL lime Signal, Greenwich, at 11.30
