THE City OF BIRMINGHAM POLICE BAND, conducted by RICHARD WASSELL
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 'S piece is founded on the Airs Princess Royal, Admiral Benbow, and Portsmouth.
BEETHOVEN wrote at different times four different Overtures to his one Opera,
Fidelio (at first called Leonora). This one is generally reckoned the best.
Leonora (No. 3) is a very long Overture, fully developed on symphonic lines-too extended for use as a theatre Overture, perhaps, but a magnificent concert piece. There is a short, slow Introduction and then the vigorous main body of the Overture begins. There are two chief tunes-the very soft and mysteriously-opening one, and a succeeding smoothly-flowing one.
Note the dramatically interrupting Trumpet-call in the middle of the Overture (generally performed, in the concert-room, by a player out of eight behind the Orchestra) ; this represents the crucial moment in the play, when the Minister of State appears—just in time to save the hero from execution.
WHITMAN gives us a dramatic picture of an " old Negro woman, ' so ancient, hardly human,' rising from the roadside to curtsy to the troops as they march through Carolina, and telling her story to the onlooker, who sees in her a personification of ancient wrongs. Her tale is simple and moving:
' Me. master, years a hundred since, from my parents sundered,
A little child they caught me as the savage beast is caught,
Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.'
KING CHARLES is one of the set of three poems which Browning called Cavalier Tunes. It is a loyal toast to the memory of an admired leader. Its refrain runs :—
King Charles, and who'll do him right now ? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now ? Give a rouse : here's, in hell s despite now, King Charles !