The Lighter Classics in Music by David Ewen

protective ring around the children, alone and asleep in the deep forest. The _Gingerbread Waltz_ (_Knusperwalzer_) from Act 3 is the joyous music expressing the children’s delight after they have succeeded in pushing the witch inside the oven and burning her to a crisp. Among Humperdinck’s many works for symphony orchestra one is occasionally performed by semi-classical or pop orchestras. It is the _Moorish Rhapsody_ (1898) written for the Leeds Festival in England. The first movement, “Tarifa—Elegy at Sunrise” reflects the sorrow of a shepherd over the decay of the Moorish people. “Tangiers—A Night in a Moorish Café” is a coffee-house scene highlighted by the sensual chant of a café singer. The suite concludes with “Tetuan—A Rider in the Desert,” depicting a desert ride with a view of Paradise in the distance. To carry into his music an Oriental atmosphere, Humperdinck modeled some of his principal themes after actual Moorish melodies, such as the second theme of the first movement for English horn, and the main melody for woodwind in the second movement. Jacques Ibert Jacques Ibert was born in Paris on August 15, 1890. He attended the Paris Conservatory between 1911 and 1919, with a hiatus of several years during World War I when he served in the French Navy. In 1919 he won the Prix de Rome. While residing in the Italian capital he wrote a symphonic work with which he scored his first major success, the suite _Escales_, introduced in Paris in 1924. From 1937 to 1955 he was director of the Academy of Rome. During this period he also served for a while as director of the combined management of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique. Ibert has written many works in virtually every form, which have placed him in the front rank of contemporary French composers. Many of these compositions are in a neo-classical idiom. Occasionally, however, he has made a delightful excursion into satire. It is with one of the latter works, the _Divertissement_ for orchestra (1930) that he has entered the semi-classical repertory, though to be sure this composition is also frequently given at symphony concerts. The _Divertissement_ begins with a short Introduction in which the prevailing mood of levity is first introduced. Then comes the “_Cortège_.” A few introductory bars suggest two march themes, the first in strings, and the second in trumpet. After that appears a loud quotation from Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” from his _A Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite_. The “Nocturne” is a dreamy little melody which precedes a delightful “Waltz” and a breezy “Parade.” The finale is in the style of an Offenbach can-can, with the piano interpolating some impudent dissonant harmonies. Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov was born in Gatchina, Russia, on November 19,