Marjorie Thomas (contralto)
Antonio Brosa (violin)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
(Leader, Paul Beard )
Conductor, Sir Malcolm Sargent
From the Royal Albert Hall , London
William Tell, based on Schiller's historical drama, was both Rossini's last opera and the only work composed expressly for the French stage. Rossini took great pains with the score, and the overture is the most elaborate and effective he ever wrote. Unlike his Italian overtures it is in four sections, and though the themes are not taken from the opera, they serve as a fitting prelude to the drama, with its Swiss setting of patriotism, pastoral scenes, and a thunderstorm.
Mendelssohn's deservedly popular Violin
Concerto was completed three years before his early death, when the ever-young composer of thirty-five had already been for seventeen years at the height of his creative powers. It was intended as a tribute to the young violinist Ferdinand David , who six years earlier had accepted Mendelssohn's invitation to become concert-master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. For a work to germinate so long in Mendelssohn's fertile brain was an exceptional event, but even more remarkable is the impression which the concerto gives of complete spontaneity.
Even if Rimsky-Korsakov's Spanish
Caprice scarcely captures the authentic Spanish atmosphere, it is at least a tourde-force by a master of orchestration. Its five linked movements, beginning with an Alborado and ending with a Fandango Asturiano, are as richly coloured as anyone could wish, and for orchestral virtuosity and exhilarating rhythm there are few pieces to equal it.