(Section B)
Leader, Paul Beard
Conducted by Leslie Heward
Symphonic suite: Printemps Debussy Beethoven's 'Dedication' Overture was composed for the opening of the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna in 1822. The music, containing a fanfare and a fugue, is consequently rather ceremonial in form, though in spirit it is lively enough. ,
Two years later it was performed again, figuring in the historic programme at the Kamthnerthor
Theatre on May 7, 1824, when the greater part of the Mass in D and the Ninth Symphony were produced.
The concert was promoted by a number of influential people in Vienna, including Prince Lichnowsky
, and the enthusiasm of the audience was tremendous.
Printemps'
Debussy's 'Printemps' is an early work, written when the composer was a Prix de Rome student in Italy.
It was originally written for chorus and orchestra, but twenty years later
Debussy revised it, leaving out the choral parts and giving more prominence to the part for piano duet.
In giving the work the title of Printemps the composer says it is
'not a descriptive Printemps, but a human one', and the music might be said to represent the slow and miserable birth of beings and things in nature, their gradual blossoming and finally the joy of being born into a new life '.
Schubert's Tragic Symphony is dealt with in Radio Music on p. 5.