THE WIRELESS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conducted by BASIL CAMERON
RUSSLAN AND LUDMILLA is a strange Opera of Dukes and Knights, Poets, Dwarfs, and Fairies, and a gigantic head which, when it blows, creates storms. The Overture is an effective piece of bright, quick music. There are two chief tunes, which are first stated, then developed (in a contrapuntal way that shows the effects of the teaching of Dehn, Glinka's master, (who was a great Bach student), and then restated.
MR. DUNHILL has arranged a number of Handel's short pieces (mostly movements in dance styles) into a Suite. The titles of the various pieces are Prelude and Pastorale, Rigaudon (originally a Provencal dance for a single pair of partners, having a leaping step in it), Sarabande (for long the chief slow dance of the old Suites), Garotte, Minuet and Gigue.
WE know Dvorak best, perhaps, by his Fifth Symphony, From the New World. His Fourth (in G) is a shorter work, lasting little more than half an hour-a light-hearted and straightforward affair.
It was written in the winter of 1889-90, when the composer was forty-eight.
It is in four Movements. In the vigorous opening Movement listeners who remember the once popular tune of ' Private Tommy Atkins ' will notice a theme very much like its opening phrase.
The other three Movements are a slow one, then a graceful dance-like piece, and finally a Movement in the style of the lively Slavonic Dances that lovers of Dvorak know weH.
BORODIN (1834?1887) Doctor of — MeuicinS and Professor of Ghetoistry. became one of the leading nationalist composers in nineteenth-century Russia. He wrote this ' Sketch ' in 1880. A ' programme ' is printed on the title-page of the score. Freely translated, it is as follows :—
' In the silence of the sandy steppes of Central Asia ring the first notes of a peaceful Russian song. One hears, too, the melancholy strains of songs of the Orient ; one hears the tramp of horses and camels as they come. A caravan, escorted by. Russian soldiers, crosses the vast desert, fearlessly pursuing its long journey, trusting wholly in its Russian warrior guard.
' Ceaselessly the caravan advances. The Russian songs and the native songs mingle in one harmony ; their strains are long heard over the desert, and at last are lost in the distance.'
Borodin aims at suggesting the great spaces of the plains by high, held notes which continue almost unbroken throughout.
The Russian song is heard at the opening on a Clarinet, answered by a Horn. A few momenta later the Cor Anglais (Contralto Oboe) plays the Oriental song.

Overture to ' Russian and Ludmilla' - Glinka
Masque Suite - Handel, arr. Dunhill
Tone Poem, ' In the Steppes of Central Asia ' - Borodin
Fourth Symphony - Dvorak
Berceuse (Cradle Song) - Jarnefelt
Spanish Caprice - Rimsky-Korsakov