Broadcast Music for Coming Week

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 5, 16 August 1929, Page 13

Broadcast Music for Coming Week

By

Botton

Woods

« Tis the deep music of the rolling world, Kindling within the strings of the waved air-~ | | ' Aeolian modulations." \- , . -Shelley.

A Childish Heart. "[SCHAIKOVSKY has left it on ree- " ord that while he was composing his "Nutcracker Suite," which i, among the happiest and most care-free of al] Mhis musie, he was himself in a thoroughly depressed frame f mind. No hint of the dismal. mood, how¢ rer, has found its way into 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: Tschaikoysky arranged the movements in the form of a suite. In the first movement, the overture. there are two principal themes, both of a delicate, almost miniature type, the first | especially being prominent throughout the movement. Next comes a little "March," then a movement with the happy title, "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." then a series of dances, Russian, Arabian and Ohinese, followed by a "Reed Pipe | Dance." ,The last movement is a waltz. usually called the "Waltz of the Flow ers," which is composed of a fine flowing waltz tune, such as'Tschaikovsky knew very well to write. The record of the overture and the waltz will be played at 2YA oh Friday, August 23. " "The Waltzing Doll." A NATIVE of Budapést, having been born there in 1869, Eduard Poldini can be considered one of the most popular ‘composers, as regards his operettas, ballets and his fascinating pianoforte pieces. He studie:: first of all at the Hungarian Conservatory, and later at Vienna, in- France and Germany. One of his best-known compositions is his "Poupee Valsante" ("Waltzing Doll"), With extraordinary cleverness this piece depicts the mechanical, almost jerky movements of the little: waltzing doll. The

work is a charming trifle, and the com poser has caught exactly the comic spirit of the awkward movements of the little automaton, The 8YA Broadcasting Trio will play Poldini’s "Poupee Valsante’ on Monday, August 19. Interrupting a Game of Marbles. (NE day the conductor of a Croydou theatre orchestra, looking out of his window, saw a little curly-haired black-faced boy holding a small-sized violin in one hand and playing marbles with the other. He called him in, put some music before him, and -was delighted to find that he could play it in petfect time and tune. From that moment the child, whose name was Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, ‘was earmarked for music. While he was still at school he led the class-singing with his violin, and began to appear in public. Some years later he was enrolled by a local benefactor as a student of the Royal College of Music. While still a student at the college, the youth produced the first part of his now fanous "Hiawatha"-a work which exhibited both racial and individual qualities, and attracted immedliate attention. It was first produced when he was twenty-three, and it is: unfortunate that, like Purcell, he died at the early age of thirty-seven, The Woolston Band will play ‘‘Demande and Reponse," by ColeridgeTaylor, at 3YA on Monday. August 19. ‘and the Bohemian Quintet will play "Wour Characteristic Waltzes," by the same composer, at 3YA on Wednesday. August 21. From Care-Free Vienna, JC RPISLER’S beautiful old Viennese dance melodies ave delighted thousands of musi¢c-lovers who have heard them. There is a plaintive appeal :.. these dance melodies of a far. off time, recalling the festivities of other days, when the waltz rhythm was a newly-discovered delight. -They come with much of the charm inseparable from folk music, and bear the unmistakable stamp of their Viennese origin A wealth of lovely music comes to ts from Vienna-its unapproachable waltzes, its delectable operettas with their rhythmic and melodie charm quite unlike the music of anywhere else, There seems to be an under: lying native beauty of tune. which, in a thousand forms, appenrs and reappears in Viennese music. Oe A rendering of Kreisler's "Liebesfreud" (Love's Delight), played by the composer himself, will be used at 3YA on Sunday, August 25. . The Piano’s Ancestor. "TT ® TAMBOURIN" is a quaint old tune written in the eighteenth century, and for the, harpsinord, by Rameau, one of France's greatest musicians. It is music of an older

tame, in its original form it took on life and colour from the varied voices of the ancient instrument for which it was written. These variations in tone-colour. were obtained by a variety of "stops" or "pedals" which caused the strings of the harpsichord to ve engaged by devices, made by various materials for plucking of the strings. thus securing different kinds of tone. Rameau ecalls it "Tambourin," and it is precisely the simple sort of music that the limited range of the tambourine suggests, but it is immensely expressive. Miss Irene Morris wil play Rameau’s "Le Tambourin" at 2YA on Friday, Angust 28. Spain Musically Portrayed. BERIA is the old name for Spain. Albeniz (1860-1909) wrote for the pianoforte a suite of twelve pieces, to which he gave this title, each descriptive of Spanish life. Several of these were orchestrated by his.friend, Dn@rique Arbos. The three best known, and usually performed pieces are (1) the "Evocation," 2 sort of synthesis or generalisation of Spanish feeling, as a prelude; (2) "Wl Corpus en, Seville," the festival of Corpus Christi, with all manner of rejoicing, a suggestion of the devotional side of the feast, and at the close, the peace of night; (3) "Triana," a suburb of Seville, in which many gipsies live. It is absolutely Spanish, savage and tender by turns, a work which becomes more and more fascinating the oftener onc hears it. A record of the last movement, "Triana," will be used at 2YA on Monday, August 19. A Folk Legend Opera. EBER was uncommonly successful in catering for the early nineteenth century German taste in ‘opera, which lay in the direction of folk legends, tales of romantic and chivalrous deeds, and homely sentiment. The opera "Der Freischutz" (The Marksman or The Freeshooter) is about mysterious deeds of black magie, the romantic love of a huntsman, and the machinations of his rival-a capital plot for those who like their opera hot and strong and do not tronble much about its possibilities and probabilities. The story follows the conventional taste of the day in that virtue is. triumphant over evil in the end. "The Marksman" went down at the first performance, so Weber wrote, with "incredible enthusiasm. . . I was called before the eurtain, . . Yerses and wreaths came flying up. Soli Deo gloria." Yet the great success and popularity of his opera was of no financial profit to Weber, who had sold the rights outright for a ridiculously small sum, The overture is built on melodies sung in the opera. A record of the overture to the opera will be used at 2YA on Tuesday, August 20.

Chopin at His Best. HE charming "Scherzo in C Sharp Minor," Op. 39, by Chopin, is a singularly beautiful work in which the chief subject is a kind of choral, interrupted here and there by what might be described as a cascade of shimmering tone, 'lace-like in its delicacy. There are sweeping arpeggios full of changing harmonies, which were onee described by a prominent writer us "like the lovely laughter of the windswept wheat." ‘Truly a most exquisite work. Mr. Erie Waters will play this "Scherzo in C Sharp Minor" at 1YA on Friday, August 28.