(Section C)
Led by MARIE WILSON
Conducted by FRANK BRIDGE
Glinka wrote the orchestral piece Kamarinskaya on two folk-songs (a bridal song, and a snatch of gypsy dance-melody from which the composition takes its name) in 1848 for the Governor of Warsaw's private orchestra. Glinka was the least self-conscious of geniuses (or almost geniuses).
In composing Kamarinskaya he had no aim deeper than the killing of boredom during an empty winter; actually, he was laying the foundation stone of Russian symphonic music.
' Kamarinskaya is astonishingly original ', wrote Tchaikovsky. 'From it all the Russian composers who have followed Glinka (including myself) continue to this day to borrow contrapuntal and harmonic combinations directly they have to develop a Russian dance tune..... Glinka managed to concentrate in one short work what a dozen second-rate talents would have invented only with the whole expenditure of their powers '.
Dvorak, as was natural, had an intense affection for the folk tunes and native idioms of his country. Much of his music is influenced by them, and the many Slavonic Dances and Rhapsodies he wrote are, of course, based on them.
The Dances were written originally for piano duet, a common form in those days, but afterwards scored for orchestra, in the highly-coloured, luxuriant manner that the fiery rhythms and piquant melodies call for.