and lemonade bottles) but above all for the human voice—a long and very demanding role taken with great verve and enthusiasm in this performance by the composer, who also conducted the work. However modern in treatment, the structure of the composition is essentially classical, being based on the form of a sonata's first movement. After an introduction consisting of a hornpipe and some musical quotations, Mr. Hamilton aired the first subject. This takes the form of a discussion on vibrations and longitudinal waves which is then picked up by each instrument in turn before the human voice returns to develop the subject. This time the approach is more analytic and the instruments are used contrapuntally, illustrating and commenting on such concepts as length and tension of strings, resonance and length of pipes and finally lip movement and valves. This brass and hardware section marks the end of the first subject and, after a brief bridge passage, the second subject is introduced. Here the mood is divergent with the instruments being allowed more room to show their virtuosity and individual character and Mr. Hamilton has chosen a subject that lends itself to harmonic variation. By so structuring the development to culminate in a display of lip and valve technique in the brass section the composer neatly brings the two subjects together. There is a brief recapitulation and then, rather than ending the work with a traditional coda, Mr. Hamilton returns to the opening hornpipe, thus achieving a fully unified circular form. Such an analysis can scarcely do justice to the complexity and wit of the composition and fails to give an account of the number of visual effects that are an integral part of the score. So intricate a work is clearly very hard to perform but such was the discipline of the playing (and all of the 32 boys and staff involved were, in a very real sense, playing) that the evening was a triumphant success—rarely can so unconventional a work have been greeted on its first performance by such a crescendo of applause. Some of the audience might question the tone and style of this review, claiming that they had attended an illustrated lecture. I can only reply that, while I found the evening instructive as well as enjoyable, I had long before the end stopped learning about the science of music and was content to sit back and listen instead to the music of science. I.M.K.L.
DRAMA HENRY IV PART I By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE performed in the Drama Centre, December 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th
THE CAST IV
Steven Bruce-Jones
Sir Walter Blunt Sir John Falstaff Prince Hal Peto Bardolph
Philip Lancaster Paddy Smith Mark Burn Richard Bronk Malcolm Warne Jon Glen
King Henry Earl of Westmoreland
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