Leader, Laurance Turner
Conductor, Sir John Barbirolli
The theme of Reger's Variations and Fugue is the one that opens Mozart's well-known Piano Sonata in A, and is itself used there as the basis of variations. Reger's work was written in 1913 for the famous orchestra at Meiningen, of which he was appointed conductor two years before.
'A Song of Summer' was one of Delius' last works. Based to some extent on an earlier piece 'A Poem of Life and Love,' it was dictated to Eric Fenby, a few bars each day, in 1929. 'I want you to imagine,' he said, 'that we are sitting on the cliffs in the heather looking out over the sea. The sustained chords in the high strings suggest the clear sky. and the stillness and calmness of the scene.' An undulating figure, introduced when the music grows more animated, was intended to suggest 'the gentle rise and fall of the waves.'
Sibelius' Fifth Symphony, originally written in 1915 (though revised later) in response to a commission from the Finnish government in celebration of the composer's fiftieth birthday, is one of the most accessible of his symphonies, despite an opening movement of an unusual design. Its graceful middle movement and the broad, swinging tune at the end seldom fail to enchant and stir the listener. It was with this Symphony that the Halle Orchestra made so tremendous an impression when they played it at the Edinburgh Festival in 1948. (Harold Rutland)