NEW MUSICAL WORK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1939, Page 5

NEW MUSICAL WORK

SIR HAMILTON HARTY’S NEW COMPOSITION. INSPIRED BY CELTIC LEGEND. Celtic legend told to him by the fiddlers and fishermen of Antrim when he was a child has inspired Sir Hamilton Harty's new work, “The Children of Lir,” which he conducted, at a British Broadcasting Corporation concert at Queen’s Hall recently. “The legend is the least known and perhaps most beautiful of the Three Sorrowful Stories of Erin,” Sir Hamilton stated. "King Lir’s lovely daughter Finola and his three sons were changed by his evil second wife into swans, doomed to haunt the lakes and seas of Ireland until they heard the sound of a Christian bell. “They wandered through storm and sunshine until they heard a church bell off the Antrim shore, and became children again. But as they were baptised by the folk, they died.” On holiday in Antrim last summer. Sir Hamilton came upon a village schoolhouse with reliefs carved on the walls setting forth the story. They were the work of Miss Praeger, the Belfast sculptress. He decided to finish his rough notes on the subject, and wrote the work on his return to London. A feature of the music is a concealed soprano. Miss Isobel Baillie, whose voice represents Finola’s coming from the sea.