Russlan and Ludmilla is a fairy-tale Opera about a Princess who was wooed by three lovers and carried off by a magician. The plot follows the adventures of the three rival suitors in search of her.
The Overture, a stirring piece of quick music, is built on themes from the Opera. One of them, that represents the wicked magician, is a descending whole-tone scale (on the piano, that in which there intervenes a key, black or white, between each pair of successive keys in the scale). This is one of the first instances of the use of this peculiar scale, which was much used later by other composers, notably by Debussy.
The First Main Tune is given out, after a few bars of Introduction, by the Full Orchestra, with great energy. This is worked up a little, one part 'imitating' another, and then the broad, swinging Second Main Tune (based on one of Russian's songs) comes on the Bassoons and Lower Strings.
It is just before the Coda, or winding-up section, that we hear the 'whole-tone scale', blared out by the heaviest bass instruments. After it, the Overture quickly 'rattles on to a rollicking conclusion.
Quilter's music comes from a children's Fairy Play produced at Christmas. 1911.
The titles of the pieces in the Suite are Rainbow Land and Will o' the Wisp; Rosamund; Fairy Frolic; and Goblin Forest.
The hero Hercules, as a penance for a crime, had to hire himself out for three years.
He took service with Omphale, Queen of Lydia, and worked at her side amongst the women-in so uncouth a manner as to win him many a blow. In this 'Symphonic Poem' you may hear the whirl of the wheels, the derision of the Queen, and the sorrow of the enslaved hero.
The incidental music to Ibsen's play about Peer Gynt, the supreme egoist, is probably the first favourite among all Orchestral Suites, and rightly so, for it is full of colour and 'atmosphere'.
The First of the two Suites made from Grieg's separate numbers contains four pieces. Morning is the serene prelude to the Fourth Act. Ase's Death (for Muted Strings) refers to Peer's old mother. Anitra's Dance is the dance of the Bedouin girl who bewitches Peer. In the Hall of the Mountain King gives a vivid picture of festivity in the palace of the goblins whom Peer visited and who tormented him, finally driving him away.
