(Leader, Reginald Stead )
Conductor, John Hopkins
Reginald Paul (piano)
Mozart's Symphony No. 32, in G, was written in Salzburg in April 1779. In January of that year, a few days before his twenty-third birthday, Mozart reluctantly returned to his native town after his long stay in Paris and Mannheim. He was anxious to write a large-scale opera, but no opportunity presented itself. He meanwhile occupied his time by composing an operetta to a German libretto by the Salzburg trumpeter Schachtner. The score of this, lacking an overture and a final chorus, was discovered after his death and published, with the title Zaide (the name of one of the characters), in 1838. The late Dr. Alfred Einstein believed that Symphony No. 32, which is in one movement, was intended to be the Overture to this operetta.
Ildebrando Pizzetti. the most eminent of the older generation of Italian composers, was born at Parma in 1880. As its title implies, his Canti della stagione alta ' (' Songs of the High Season ') is a glowing and colourful work. It was written in 1930, and its three movements afford plenty of scope for the solo pianist and also for the orchestra. The second movement, marked Adagio, leads without a break into the final Rondo. Harold Rutland