Domestic Orchestration
YW HO was the English boy who wrote some music for a child’s play, and when he grew up and became a famous composer made the same music into two orchestral suites? The boy was Edward Elgar, who, when he was young, lived in the West Country city of Worcester. In 1869, at the age of
twelve, he composed the pieces for a child’s play, scoring them for what he called " domestic orchestra." You know what that means-comb and tissue paper, tommy-talkers perhaps, and the best metal tray to be had in the house. Nearly 40 years afterwards, the composer, who was Sir Edward Elgar by this time, revised the music for the famous Three Choirs Festival, which :
was held in Worcester :n 1908. So the music was played in public at a great festival in the same city where it was originally written and performed in private, and was not much altered by the composer when he grew up. It just shows what an imaginative boy of twelve, with a touch of musical genius, can do. Sir Edwerd was a lovable man who was very fond of children-he composed his Nursery Suite for our Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose and the Starlight Express music also for children. -(From "The Junior Encyclopaedia of the Air,’ by "Ebor," 2¥Y4, December 1.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 131, 26 December 1941, Page 5
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223Domestic Orchestration New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 131, 26 December 1941, Page 5
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