Next Week's Programmes

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 31, 15 February 1929, Page 23

Next Week's Programmes

Some Descriptive Notes

"THE quartette, "It Was a Lover and His Lass," to be sung during the English folk-song night at. 8YA on Thursday, is by the old composer Morley. This song is very familiar to all in its modern settings, notably in Quilter’s. It comes from "As You Like It,’ and as Morley was probably a friend of Shakespeare, it is quite probable that his settings were used when the plays were first introduced. NE of the most unique records yet produced is the "Storm on the Volga," which appears on 3YA’s programme for Sunday evening. It is a recording of the Russian State Choir, and the human voices, aided by no musical or other sound-producing instruments, give a wonderful representation of Nature in an angry mood. All the noises which accompany a storm are there, the whining and howling wind, the lashing rain and the pealing thunder. It is weird. In the background is a Russian folk-song, and on this the general effect of a remarkable recording is built up. py 1837 Wagner, then a young man of twenty-four, read a German translation of Bulwer Lytton’s "Rienzi," and determined to push ahead at once with an idea that he had had in mind for some time-that of writing an opera on the subject of Rienzi, the Roman hero. With characteristic boldness and lofty imagination he conceived a work on a grandiose scale. That spirit is reflected in the somewhat blatant, pulse-stirring Overture, which will be heard from 8YA on Sunday, February 24. N the popular ‘‘Vulcan’s Song,’ to ‘be sung by Mr. J. M. Caldwell at 2YA on Friday evening, the blacksmith god, Vulcan, who forged Jove’s thunderbolts, tells why he prefers to remain in his underground kingdom, where he is lord of all. It is because when he ventured above,. to Olympus, and wood Venus, he was repulsed and made a laughing stock. "THE Lake of Swans," Tchaikowsky’s first ballet suite, a selection from which is to be played by 2YA orchestra on Monday evening, was written for performance at the Imperial Theatre at Moscow fifty years ago. In spite of the charming music, the work, as a whole, owing to the poorness of the production, was then not very successful. Later it had the fuller success which its charm and tunefulness and its skilful orchestration welldeserved. The story of the ballet ig about the love of a young knight for a maiden, whom a wicked sorcerer hag changed into a swan. ‘There is obviously room here for graceful and lyrical music, as well as for more dramatie and .exciting movements. Like many other composers, Tchaikowsky

loved to seek a quiet summer retreat in the country and there to write in peace, Hrom Moscow he used to retire for a period to the estate of his married sister, and here in 1876, just after he had completed his Third Symphony, he wrote his Swan Lake Ballet which had been commissioned by the Imperial Opera. The inspiration came so freely that he had the music of two acts ready in a fortnight. L822, the composer of the "Second Hungarian Rhapsody," which will be heard from 8YA on Wednesday evening, was a great lover of the music of the gypsies of Hungary, and made a number of their tunes into Rhapso-dies-a term he used,'so he said, because he felt that it best expressed the epic element in the gypsies’ performances. In his book, "The Gypsies and their Musie in Hungary," he gives a stirring account of such performances. Most of his twenty Rhapsodies were composed on his return in 1839 from a tour abroad, on which occasion a sword of honour was presented to him by Hungarian nobles. They were piano solos, and Liszt later arranged some for piano duets, and orchestrated a few. WO songs from Schubert’s "Winterreise" ("Winter Journey’), which takes the form of a song cycle, are to be sung by Mr. Hartly Warburton at 1YA on Sunday, February 24. The cycle is a setting of twenty-four songs by Wilhelm Muller, which Schubert composed in 1827, the year before he died. The story tells of the end of a youth’s romance and he takes his lonely road in sorrow. Everything reminds him of his past happiness, yet promises no renewal of it. He dreams of May, and wakes to winter. He sees portents in Nature of the final departure of hope and of the coming vu: death. In "The Stormy Morning," he hails as a friend the winter storm with its wild, disordered sky, torn by lightning, for in his heart rages ever a storm of grief. "The Raven," the next song, tells of the bird of ill-omen who has kept him company all along. Does it hope to pisk his bones? Very soon his journey in life will be ended. He begs the ‘raven to be his companion until then. '[CHAIKOWSKY has left it on record that while composing his "CasseNoisette" ("Nuteracker") Suite, which is among the happiest and most carefree of all his music, he was himself in a thoroughly depressed frame of mind. No hint of any dismal mood has found its way intvu the music. It was composed originally for a ballet by Dumas the elder, with the name "Histoire d’un Casse-Noisette" ("The Tale of a Nutcracker"). in 1891, and in the. following year Tchaikowsky arranged the movements which are to be played next week from 2YA and 1YA.