César Cui is always associated with the great Russian nationalist composers Balakirev, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mussorgsky, and he is always reckoned as a member of the famous group : the ' mighty handful'. But his father was a Frenchman, a prisoner of war taken in the 1812 campaign, and as a rule his music is not very Russian in flavour, though this Suite * in popular style', one of his most attractive works, is a delightful exception.
By profession, Cui was a military engineer. As a youth he studied composition with the Polish composer Moniuszko; he died in 1915 at the age of eighty.

MOLLY MITCHELL (contralto)

by G. D. CUNNINGHAM
Relayed from
The Town Hall, Birmingham

Relayed from
The Pump Room, Leamington Spa

in A Tune a Minute