MUSIC
The Promenade Concerts
THE Promenade Concerts entered last Saturday upon a new series without their genial creator who had sustained them for fifty years.
For the first night two orchestras, the London Symphony and the B.B.C., were assembled and quite filled that sector of the oval allotted to them. The audience, larger than ever it seemed, filled the remainder of the huge space from floor to ceiling. What was more important was that the orchestral sound also filled the hall ; it did not give the usual impression of a rather distant voice crying in the wilderness. The effect was splendid in Elgar's " Cockaigne " Overture, even though the multiplication of the wood-wind resulted in some thickening of the more delicate passages. In Rachmaninov's " Paganini Rhapsody," Mr. Cameron, who conducted these two works, wisely reduced the orchestra to more normal proportions in order not to overweight Mr. Moiseiwitsch's bri:liant performance of the pianoforte solo. I wish the composer had not perceived an affinity between the " Dies Irae " and Paganini's theme, since the fine plain-chant is ruined by four-square rhythm and romantic harmonies.
Sir Adrian Boult then took charge and Mr. Beard replaced Mr. Stratton at the leader's desk. In Ireland's " Forgotten Rite," an exact contemporary by the way of a more startling Rite by Stravin- sky, Sir Adrian obtained from the strings a solid and well-balanced mass of tone moulded into shapely phrases, which was a pleasure to hear. I confess I had not realised what an impressive piece of
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