Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
(Leader, David McCallum)
Conducted by Nicolai Malko

Part 1 at 8.0
Overture: Le Carnaval Romain Berlioz
8.13 app. Symphony in D minor ................ Franck

PART 2 at 9.15
Overture: Prince Igor Borodin
9.27 app. Prelude a Tapres-midi d'un faune Debussy
9.40 app. Symphonic fragments: Daphnis and Chloe (second series)...Ravel

Vincent d'Indy once described Franck's Symphony as 'a continual ascent towards pure gladness and life-giving light.' Completed in 1888, when the composer was sixty-five, the work received only one performance in his lifetime, at a Paris Conservatoire concert in the following year. A critic declared at the time that since it contained a part for a cor anglais it could not possibly be a true symphony! Within a few years, however, us melodic beauty and power, and its shining sincerity, won for it an established place in the repertory. The 'theme of faith,' first heard in the opening movement, re-appears at the end, surrounded by an aura of 'life-giving light.' Founded on the Greek pastoral by Longus, which tell, of the love of a young shepherd and shepherdess, Daphnis and Chloe was produced as a ballet by Diaghilev in Paris in 1912 The second set of symphonic fragments is taken from the third and last scene. Chloe, rescued from the pirates by Pan, comes, to the grove consecrated to the nymphs and finds Daphnis prostrate with grief at her loss. Overjoyed at seeing each other again, they embrace, and learn from Lammon, an old shepherd, that Pan has intervened and saved Chloe in memory of his love for the nymph Syrinx. In their gratitude the lovers enact in mime Pan's wooing of Syrinx, and the ballet ends with a general dance of rejoicing. (Harold Rutland)

FROM THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON