GEORGE PARKER (Baritone)
THE WlBELESB SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(Leader, S. KNEALE KELLEY )
Conducted by LESLIE HEWARD
SUZANNA’S secret proves, at the end of the Opera, after everyone has been kept in suspense, to be a very innocent one. Her husband discovers traces of smoke in her boudoir, and has his jealous suspicions immediately aroused. In an age when smoking by ladies was quite unusual, it never occurred to him that it was she herself who had smoked the offending cigarette.
Wolf-Ferrari is a brilliant member of the modern Italian school who has shown himself to be at home both in serious and in lighter music, as these two pieces, on contrasted subjects, make very clear.
HUGO WOLF , thought by many people whose opinion is worth while to be the greatest song-writer since Schubert, died at an early age in a mental institution. All his life he was a queer, restless mortal, working sometimes for quite long stretches at fever heat and then relapsing into idleness for months, or even for years.
This piece, composed originally as a String
Quartet, one of his few instrumental works, is a bright sunny piece, descriptive of the warmth and happiness of Italy. He was always strongly attracted by Italy and set a number of Italian poems to music. A LARGE share of Sibelius’ music is concerned with the folklore of his native Finland, and in more than one piece he deals with one part or another of the great -epic of his own land—the Kalevala. Tuonela is the Hades of the old Finnish mythology and all round it there runs a deep and swift-flowing river of dread black water. On it the Swan keeps majestic guard, and sings.
To prove himself worthy of his bride, Lemmiukainen, one of the old Finnish heroes, was set the task, among other tests of skill and daring, of shooting the Swan, and Sibelius' music sets forth the tale with all the vivid power which he has at command. An English horn solo at the beginning of the work is the Swan itself, and the big sonorous climax to which the music works up is the culmination of the tale, after which it sinks again to quietude.
