Last Concert of the Winter Season
Amy Shuard (soprano)
Gioconda de Vito (violin)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
(Leader, Paul Beard )
Conductor,
Sir Malcolm Sargent
-From the Royal Albert Hall, London Cimbelom, Gilbert Webster
Hary Janos is a comic opera by Kodaly about an old soldier who loves to spin yarns. A musical sneeze opens the first movement, ' Prelude, The Fairy Tale Begins.' In the original poem there is a character who, after every obvious lie told by Hary, lets out a terrific sneeze, as if to remind Hary that what he said was not quite consistent with the truth; so Kodaly has used this as a sensational opening to the whole work. The second movement depicts a musical clock seen by Hary and his wife in Vienna, and the third is a charmingly decorated folk song. Then, in the fourth movement, Hary describes how he, at the head of his hussars, charged and defeated the whole French Army, and Napoleon was left to beg for mercy! A tuneful Intermezzo follows, and the Suite ends with a ceremonial march. Harold Rutland