Janet Baker (contralto)
Moscow Radio Orchestra
Leader, Mikhail Cherniachovsky
Conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
From the Royal Albert Hall, London

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Gennadi Rozhdestvensky conducts the Moscow Radio Orchestra
Visitors to the U.S.S.R. are highly impressed by the brilliant standard of concert performances and by the vital and unaffected enthusiasm with which these concerts are greeted by the Soviet public. This is particularly noticeable among the younger generation, and symphony concerts consisting largely of new works are always completely sold out.
The Moscow Radio Orchestra under its Present conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. has played a considerable part in satisfying the insatiable demand Formed thirty-five years ago, its first conductor was Nikolai Golovanov, followed by the great Professor Alexander Gauk. With a playing strength of 126 musicians, it is the largest orchestra in the U.S.S.R. and its vast and adventurous repertoire is its distinctive feature.
Preparations for this Present visit, which also includes appearances at the Edinburgh Festival and Harrogate Festival of Arts, have been especially thorough. The orchestra will arrive here well prepared for an arduous tour which embraces nine concerts in ten days.
This will be the first occasion that a foreign orchestra has taken part in the Promenade Concert season; such an auspicious invitation is our side of an exchange agreement which will take the BBC Symphony Orchestra to the U.S.S.R. The exchange visit has taken over two years to arrange and it will be interesting to observe the relative reactions by the respective publics to the two orchestras. Pierre Boulez and Sir John Barbirolli will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra on their tour.
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, who is well known to British audiences, is the son of the late eminent conductor Nikolai Anosov. In addition to being the permanent conductor of the Moscow Radio Orchestra for the past six years, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky is also principal conductor at the Bolshoi Opera House He is married to the Bolshoi Ballet star Nina Timofeyeva.
The composers represented in this week's programmes have a special affinity with the orchestra and conductor The popularity of Benjamin Britten is rivalled only by that of Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, the 75th anniversary of whose birth later this year is being marked by the orchestra with an ambitious programme of recording his entire orchestral output, including the complete operas and ballets.
The orchestra, which has already appeared at the Prague Spring Festival and the Vienna Festival has, for some months, been looking forward to its visit to this country, having heard glowing reports of our great musical traditions from Soviet artists regularly appearing here. (Victor Hochhauser)