Relayed from the National Museum of Wales
National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)

Svendsen was the son of a Military Band master, and himself held such a post while only in his teens. He had some experience, too, as an orchestral musician, and when only twenty-one, set out on a tour of Sweden and Northern Germany. No great good luck attended him until, two years later, he obtained a grant from Charles XV. to enable him to carry on his studies of the violin. Again misfortune overtook him, and paralysis of one of his hands brought his career as a violinist to an end.
Turning his energies to composition, he produced some quite interesting chamber music and a symphony, travelling in Denmark, Scotland, and Norway, introducing his own works. For two years, 1868 until the war of 1870, he was in Paris, and thereafter his life was a succession of journeys, in the course of which he held posts as conductor in many centres of musical activity. He enjoyed the friendship of the greatest men in the world of music, and had opportunities of hearing many of his own works performed under the best possible conditions.
Like most of his music, the 'Carnival in Paris' is cosmopolitan rather than specialty Scandinavian; it bears the impress of a sturdy individuality and, like all his work, is marked by very careful, tidy craftsmanship. Owing its origin to the composer's happy experience of the gay city at the time when the second Empire was flourishing, it is a lively, highly effective piece of music which is happily described by its own title.
The chief tune seems at first unwilling to let itself be heard in full, but emerges anon in a very merry, bustling guise. It is succeeded by a sprightly, dainty tune, one which undergoes many transformations as the different instruments toss it about. It appears later in a much slower and more suave form, to return presently in its original mood of merriment. The different tunes are used singly and together in the most effective way, and the Carnival grows more and more boisterous as it proceeds, to end in a regular outbreak of mirth and bustle.

(to 14.00)