Conducted by B. WALTON O'DONNELL
HUGH CARSON (baritone) the TEXT of Rossini's opera, Semiramide, is founded on Voltaire's tragedy of the Assyrian Queen, which is again based on Herodotus. Semiramide was the last opera that Rossini wrote for Italian audiences. On the first production in Venice its reception was cold. In both London and Paris, however, Semiramide had the success it rightly deserved.
SAINT-SAËNS composed this March in honour of his friend the painter, Henri Rognault , who was killed during the Siege of Paris in 1871. It is not, however, a Funeral March ; its name indicates quite clearly the composer's intention, and it does, indeed, embody something of triumph and exultation.