Conductor, Sir DAN GODFREY
ANTONIA BUTLER (Violoncello)
From THE PAVILION, BOURNEMOUTH
TCHAIKOVSKY from a child had the greatest affection for the compositions of tho
Italian school and particularly for those of Mozart. It is perhaps the influence that this affection had on his own work which gave Tchaikovsky's music so popular an appeal at a time when Wagner and Brahms were the models most in vogue. But Tchaikovsky never swerved in his allegiance, and this suite is in some measure an act of homage. He has here taken some little known compositions of Mozart and worked them into an orchestral suite, using a Mozart orchestra and as far as possible a Mozart idiom. The first two numbers are taken from piano pieces, the third is the well-known Ave Verum in Liszt's transcription, and the theme of the variations is a tune Unser dummer I'Obel meint, which is not even Mozart's, but one which Mozart used for a set of piano variations.