THE BIRMINGHAM LADIES' ; STRING QUARTET:
Muriel Tookey (first violin) ; Dorothy Hemming ; Lena Wood (viola); Elsa Tookey (violoncello) is amongst the finest that has been produced by British composers in recent years. Much of his best work of this kind was composed between the appearance of ' Three Novelettes' in 1904 and the writing of these two short pieces based on well-known tunes in 1916. The method employed by the composer in his use of the two fine eighteenth-century tunes ' Sally in our Alley' and ' Cherry Ripe ' is that of the fantasia, which, with its freedom of form, is peculiarly adaptable to the exploitation of a given melody.