“Second Movement
“In the second movement the composer paints us a picture of that region of London which lies between Holborn and the Euston Road, known as Bloomsbury. Dusk is falling. It is the damp and foggy twilight of a late November day. Those who know their London know this region of melancholy streets over which seems to brood an air of shabby gentility—a sad dignity of having seen better days. In the gathering gloom there is something ghostlike. A silence hangs over the neighborhood broken only by the policeman on his beat.
“There is tragedy, too, in Bloomsbury, for among the many streets between Holborn and Euston there are alleys of acute poverty and worse.
“In front of a ‘pub’ whose lights flare through the murky twilight stands an old musician playing the fiddle. His tune is played in the orchestra by the viola. In the distance the ‘lavender cry’ is heard: ‘Sweet lavender; who’ll buy sweet lavender?’ Up and down the street the cry goes, now nearer, now farther away.
“The gloom deepens and the movement ends with the old musician still playing his pathetic little tune.
“Third Movement
“In this movement one must imagine one’s self sitting late on a Saturday night on one of the benches of the Temple Embankment (that part of the Thames Embankment lying between the Houses of Parliament and Waterloo Bridge). On our side of the river all is quiet, and in the silence one hears from a distance coming from the other side of the river all the noises of Saturday night in the slums. (The ‘other’ side, the south side of the river Thames, is a vast network of very poor quarters and slums.) On a Saturday night these slums resemble a fair; the streets are lined with barrows, lit up by flaming torches, selling cheap fruit, vegetables, produce of all kinds; the streets and alleys are crowded with people. At street corners coster girls in large feather hats dance their beloved ‘double-shuffle jig’ to the accompaniment of a mouth organ. We seem to hear distant laughter; also every now and then what sounds like cries of suffering. Suddenly a concertina breaks out above the rest; then we hear a few bars on a hurdy-gurdy organ. All this softened by distance, melted into one vast hum, floats across the river to us as we sit meditating on the Temple Embankment.
“The music changes suddenly, and one feels the Thames flowing silent, mysterious, with a touch of tragedy. One of London’s sudden fogs comes down, making Slumland and its noises seem remote. Again, for a few bars, we feel the Thames flowing through the night, and the picture fades into fog and silence.
“Fourth Movement
“The last movement deals almost entirely with the cruder aspect of London, the London of the unemployed and unfortunate. After the opening bars we hear the ‘Hunger March’—a ghostly march past of those whom the city grinds and crushes, the great army of those who are cold and hungry and unable to get work.