Russian Programme
The BBC
Midland Orchestra
Leader, Alfred Cave
Conducted by Leslie Heward Gogol's collection of short stories,
' Evenings on a farm near Dikanka ', has been a fruitful source of inspiration to Russian opera composers. Mussorgsky's Fair at Sorochintsy, Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith, Rimsky-Korsakov’s A May Night and Christmas Eve-all these works are based on Gogol's delightful, humorous-fantastic tales of village life in the Ukraine.
' A May Night' had been a favourite tale of Rimsky-Korsakov's from childhood ; he read it with his lady-love on the day he proposed to her ; and it was his wife who finally persuaded him to make an opera of it. The opera (written in 1878) was Korsakov's second, and, as listeners will gather from the overture, is one of his most tuneful and lyrical co.n-positions, by no means depending on orchestral colour for its effect.
Much less often played than the popular Second Symphony in B minor, Borodin's First Symphony is in some respects an even finer work. Its first movement is one of the most remarkable in the whole history of the post - Beethovenian symphony, practically the whole of the thematic material being stated in the first few bars of the slow introduction. The other three movements-the Berliozian scherzo with its folk-songish trio, the oriental slow movement, the breezy, though rather Schumannesque, finale-if by no means as original, are equally delightful.
It is almost incredible that this
Symphony was the work of a self-taught amateur. Though, it is true, Balakirev claimed that ' every bar of it was criticised and overhauled by me '. It was begun in 1862, but not completed till 1867.
4.33 Suite, Nutcracker... Tchaikovsky