ASTRA DESMOND (Contralto)
THE VIRTUOSO STRING QUARTET
MARJORIE HAYWARD (Violin) ; EDWIN VIRGO (Violin); RAYMOND JEREMY (Viola);
CEDRIC SHARPE (Violoncello)
Quartet for Strings in E Minor, Op 59, No. 2
Beethoven
Allegro ; Molto adagio ; Allegretto, Trio-Theme russe; Finale-Presto
THE three Quartets which make up Op. 69 belong to a period of Beethoven's career when things were going anything but happily for him. Vienna was occupied by the victorious French troops, and the unfortunate people had to suffer all manner of irksome restraints and privations. The Court and all Beethoven's important friends had left Vienna, and the tragic affliction of his deafness was beginning to make itself seriously felt. It may thus well be true that some of the sadness which can be heard in this music is a real reflection of his own depressed spirits. The Quartets are all dedicated to Count Rasoumowaky, and are affectionately known to chamber music lovers all over the world by his name. He was Russian Ambassador at the Viennese Court, and it is supposed that ths Russian airs which in each Quartet form the basis of one or other of the movements, .were suggested by him to Beethoven.

EUGENE GOOSSENS. the third bearer of the name to achieve distinction as conductor, bids fait to add greater lustre to the family annals as a composer, than his distinguished father and grand father. Sturdily English in spite of his Belgian descent, he owes less than most of his contemporaries to English folk song. His music is quite definitely original, and though in many ways as modern as most of the music of the present day school, it is not so strange in its idiom as some by which listeners have been rather baffled.
He is equally at home in composing for the orchestra, where his unusually wide experience as a conductor stands him in good stead, or in the more restricted domain of chamber music.