Certs, from Which Many and Representative Broadcasts Were Given, Attested the Vitality of These Concerts Over a Total Period of Ten Weeks

Music: Programmes in the Home, Light, and Third Services, continued to show a balance, according to taste, between the familiar, the not -so -well- known, and the new. Crowded audiences at the Summer and Winter Promenade Con- certs, from which many and representative broadcasts were given, attested the vitality of these concerts over a total period of ten weeks. In the 1950 Summer Proms the Opera Orchestra made its Promenade début under its permanent conductor, Stanford Robinson. Herbert Murrill has now succeeded Sir Steuart Wilson as Head of Music, and Sir Malcolm Sargent was appointed chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. As Sir Malcolm was unable to take up his new position at once, more guest conductors than usual were introduced in the 1950 -I season, including such distinguished musicians as Issay Dobrowen, Vittorio Gui, Albert Wolff, interpreting works with which they are specially associated. Before Sir Adrian Boult left to become Chief Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra he took the BBC Symphony Orchestra on a provincial tour, his last tour with them as permanent conductor. Most successful concerts were given at Leeds, Harrogate, Bradford, Liverpool, and Belfast. Operatically, as well as symphonically, there has been much to enjoy in studio performances and in broadcasts from opera houses at home and abroad. Drama: The event of the year most likely to be remembered in the annals of radio drama was the production in six programmes of Louis MacNeice's translation of Goethe's Faust, Parts I and II, with Stephen Murray as Faust and Howard Marion Crawford as Mephistopheles. Other major classics broadcast on Home Service in the World Theatre series or on Third Programme have been the sequence of eleven of Ibsen's plays including Brand with Sir Ralph Richardson, and a full quota of Shakespeare ranging from the Stratford - on -Avon Memorial Theatre Company's production, with John Gielgud, of Measure for Measure, to a new radio version of Antony and Cleopatra with Pamela Brown and Godfrey Tearle. Plays from the Continent have continued to be well represented on Monday nights in Home Service or on Third, IoI