Next Week's Programmes

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 32, 22 February 1929, Page 5

Next Week's Programmes

Some Descriptive Notes

[ew was in his Freebooter Songs that William Wallace had his greatest cess. These are ballads of the days "When the moss-troopers (outlaws) roamed the Scottish border and made fierce forays upon those whose hands were against them. Two of these songs are to be sung by Mr. J. M. Caldwell at 2YA on Monday evening. "The Rebel" is a stirring song of the freebooter, who respects no law but that of the foray and envies none save the eagle and the hawk. "Son of Mine" is the cradle song of a hunted father to his babe, who, he proudly declares, shall himself some day lead the broken clan. It is some 40 or 50 years ago since William Wallace graduated with honours as Doctor of Medicine at Glasgow University. But he soon gave up the .. medical profession for music, during the war he held important.posts im the medical service. SELECTION entitled "Tabor" to be played by 2YA Orchestra on Monday evening is a symphonic picture from "My Country," by Smetana, the first Bohemian composer to achieve distinction. He was a great lover of his native land, and in his set of orchestral pieces entitled "My Country" he celebrated in music its natural beauties, its history, and its legends. The pipe and tabor music which will be represented in the piece to be played, was once a popular form of musical entertainment. Instead of the usual six holes, the pipe had three, the pipe being held in one hand while the other struck the tabor, a diminutive drum or

tambourine. In the orchestration _by Smetana the drum-like effect is noticeable throughout. HD "rl King," which will be heard from 1YA on Sunday evening, is a poem by Goethe set to musie by Schubert. It , ictures a father and his sick child on horseback. The ghostly Brl King flies with them, unsecn and unheard by the father, but seen and heard by the boy. The hard riding through the night (verse 1), the boy’s terror at seeing the ghostly figure (verse), the Erl King’s wheedling invitation (verse 3) the boy’s renewed terror, and the father’s attempt to comfort him (verse 4), the Erl King’s second invitation (verse 5), the boy’s cry and the father’s consolation (verse 6), the Erl King’s grasp of the boy (verse7) and the boy’s death (verse 8) are all graphically pictured. AN appropriate number to be played by 2YA orchestra during the St. David’s Day concert will be the "Celtic Suite’ composed by Foulds. Tt has been suggested that in the three movements which constitute this suite-the Clans, a Lament, and the Call-the composer intended to pay homage to the three great races of Celts in the British Isles-the Scottish, the Welsh, and the Irish. The Clans: There are three chief features in this first piece. The rugged energetic opening tune seems to suggest the Highlands of Scotland. Later, a more tranquil rustic tune is heard, characterisically Scottish. Then we hear a Call (perhaps the summoning of the clans), and after this most of the foregoing material is treated in various ways, including suggestions of the bagpipes. A Lament: This is the piece that has been likened to a Welsh folk song. It consists chiefly of a simple, expressive melody which is worked up by the orchesra to a telling climax. A Call: The last piece is very spirited and vigorous. There are in it three chief tunes, the first of which suggests the Irish jig, the second a hornpipe, and the third a march. These three combine to make a brilliant ending. "THE Broken Cross," to be sung on St. David’s night at 1YA, is a Welsh air inspired by the fragment of a cross remaining over the grave of Einon. JHinon was a famous warrior who was slain in battle during the reign of Henry III, and whose body was buried in a spot (now pointed out) in the Vale of Clwyd, North Wales. A cross was erected there to mark the place but it has been allowed to fall out of repair and only a part of it remains. WHEN Delibes began to write for the stage at the age of twenty-one he soon showed that he had a capital "sense of the theatre." He brought out some short comie operas at the Lyric Theatre of Paris, aud wrote a number of opereftas for other theatres After periods as uccompanist and see ond chorus master at the opera, be was commissioned to collabornte in a hballet with the Polish composer Minkus, and did it so well that he was asked

to compose one himself. This was "Coppelia," which came out in May, 1870. Its run was tragically interrupted by the outbreak a few weeks later of the Franco-Prussian War. A valse from "Coppelia" will be played by 3YA Studio Orchestra, under Mr. Harold Beck on Wednesday evening. i\ R. LEON DE MAUNY will be playing Chopin’s "Second Nocturne" on Thursday evening. Chopin was not the inventor of Nocturne. That distinction belongs to the Irishman, John Field; but Chopin had a wider emiotional range and a finer feeling for the possibilities of the piano than had Field, and the three Nocturnes in the second set he wrote show his developing imaginative power and technical freedom. The Nocturne, like many other of Chopin’s pieces, are capable of bearing a good many poetical interpretations. The attraction of this music does not, of course, consist in its being supposed to represent or suggest this, that or the other, but in the fact that it has moods and rea] emotions, and that the player’s imagina-

ion, working on the composer’s material transmits some clear mood and emotion to us. The Nocturnes may thus appeal in widely different ways to listeners of differing temperament, each hearer giving some personal colour to the music as it passes through ‘the prism of his own imagination.