Variations from Versailles - Dalmaine, Cyril

1. Theme: Versailles
2. M. de Molière's Revels
3. The Garden of Marie-Antoinette
4. The Bassin de Neptune
5. Serenade to Madame de Pompadour
6. The Sun King: Louis XIV
7. The Dauphin's Music Box
8. M. Couperin Comes to Court
9. Court Equestrians
10. Enter Napoleon Bonaparte
11. Peacocks and Popinjays
12. Requiem for Queen Marie-Thérèse
13. Royal Fanfare and Fireworks

This imaginative album by Cyril Dalmaine is a set of variations for piano on an old French theme, and reflects the grandeur of the French Court. Suggested grade 3.

Composer and critic Cyril Carr Dalmaine graduated from the Royal College of Music and was Music master at Uppington School before going on to become chorus master to the BBC. He is most famous for coining the term \"Lord Haw-Haw” in his work as radio critic of the Daily Express under the pseudonym Jonah Barrington, in reference to the Nazi propaganda broadcasts of William Joyce during the Second World War.

Dalmaine was also a record presenter in the pre-1955 days and responsible for the \"discovery\" of the then deceased Italian tenor, Alessandro Valente, giving Valente enjoyed a considerable posthumous vogue. As a composer Dalmaine wrote chamber music, and transcribed the cantatas of J.S. Bach to piano as well as a wide range of piano and string works published by Forsyth.

His works such as Variations from Versailles and Pathway to the Proms remain in print and are well worth re-discovering, while his arrangements of popular classics in our Silhouette Series remain best sellers.