They laid the vet’ran on the shelf,
Secure from further knocks,
And he’s got his company all to himself,
For he is the last of the box.”
The dressing of the characters of this airy little piece might be very bright and effective, and not difficult to manage at all.
A musical play for young girls, easily acted in a room, is “Elsa’s Fairy,” by Myles B. Foster (Boosey, 1s.). Pleasant singable solos are interspersed with as attractive choruses, No. 1, in nine-eight time, being especially pretty. The prose part has a little plot of interest to small girls, and the pianoforte accompaniments and pleasing interludes are simple and good, making the whole a very useful little piece indeed. Ordinary dress only is required.
“A Spring Morning,” composed of a three-part chorus, trio, soprano solo, chorus, and a chorus “Epilogue” is a most artistic short idyll, by A. E. Horrocks (J. Williams), well calculated to suit sweet and refined voices for drawing-room performance. Little power is required, but all must be gracefully rendered, and a result may be secured which is happy in the extreme. The introduction prepares our minds suitably for the words of May Byron (May Gillington of yore), whose name, together with that of another of our best versifiers, Helen Marion Burnside, is a guarantee of all that is good for girls to sing or read.
The choral dances (in 1s. book) of “Prince Sprite,” a fairy operetta, by Florence A. Marshall, makes a remarkably bright, cheery suite, consisting of melodious minuet, waltzes, and galop, in two-part choruses.
The plot of “Thyra” is laid on the sea-coast of Norway, amidst fisher-girls and spirits of good and spirits of evil. It is a more intricate operetta-cantata in one act, by Algernon H. Lindo (Willcocks), and it boasts of duettinos, trio, and recitatives of an operatic description, in addition to solos and choruses. Then there are two cantatas treating of fairy folk (both with two-part choruses), namely, “A Woodland Dream,” by J. A. Moonie (2s., Novello), which is exceedingly pretty throughout, with a very pleasing opening chorus and epilogue, elegant little dances and nice accompaniments, which can also be had for a small orchestra. This admits of the assistance of numbers of fays, gnomes, and fairies, who have nothing much to do but to look pretty; only two soprano soloists and one mezzo or contralto are required.
The other one is “In Dreamland,” by Clement Locknane (Houghton, 2s. 6d.), the opening chorus also being especially melodious; soloists, three soprani and one mezzo. It has dances, too, and orchestral parts.