Leader, BERTRAM LEWIS
Conductor, RICHARD AUSTIN
ELSIE HALL (pianoforte) from the Pavilion, Bournemouth
I. Awakening of happy Feelings on getting out into the Country (Allegro ma non trcppo) ; 2. By the Brookside (Andante molto mosso) ; 3. Merry Gathering of the Country folk (Allegro)—Thunderstorm (Allegro)-Shepherd's Song : Happy and thankful Feelings after the Storm (Allegretto)
Allegro moderato; 2. Tema con variazioni
(Soloist, ELSIE HALL )
Like several other of Russia's most distinguished composers, Glazunov, who died a few weeks ago, had a curious career. In the eighties, as a young man, he was the rising hope of the nationalists ; in the nineties he came under the influence of Brahms and other Western composers. Until about 1904 he composed prolifically; after that, during the remaining thirty-two years of his life, he produced only a few comparatively unimportant works (perhaps because his duties as head of the Petersburg Conservatoire left him little leisure).
This Piano Concerto, finished in 1911 and dedicated to Leopold Godow sky, was his last important work. It is in two movements, the second consisting of a theme and nine variations, a form of which Glazunov was a master.
Frederick Smetana was, like all natives of Bohemia, an intense patriot and lover of the natural beauties of his country. He wrote a series of six symphonic poems in praise of Bohemia, entitled ' My Country '. The one now to be performed is the first, and its title refers to the River Voltava (or Moldau), Bohemia's most important waterway. The music sets out to describe the course of the river from its rise in a forest spring, and its course through the meadows, past the towns, towards the sea. It is obviously the simplest kind of programme music, made up of folk-tunes and lilting melodies, but surely all the more fascinating for its entire freedom from literary complications.