VIVIENNE CHATTERTON (Soprano)
WILLIAM MICHAEL (Baritone)
THE GERSHOM PARKINGTON QUINTET
REBixov spent a very active life in the cause of music, as pianist, composer, and as conductor of musical societies in parts of Russia where music had been sadly neglected before. He used to be called ' the father of Russian modernism,' no doubt because of his innovations in form and harmony. He was among the very first composers to make use of the whole tone scale (that is a scale in which the octave is divided into six equal intervals instead of the customary seven, which include two half tones). He is best known to British listeners by his melodious and picturesque 'Christmas Tree Suite.'
LIKE many of his colleagues in the Russian school of composers, Cui was an amateur. His actual job in life was soldiering, and he was for a number of years Professor of Military Engineering at one of the Army training schools. But his adoption as a member of the Russian school has this special interest that he was really a Frenchman, or at any rate half French, by descent. His father was one of Napoleon's officers who was left in Russia during the disastrous retreat from Moscow. He settled down there, and married a Lithuanian lady, adopting as his home the , country which his Emperor had failed to conquer.
Rimsky-Korsakov's fantastic opera, Coq d'Or
(The Golden Cockerel) was broadcast at the end of last January, so that listeners will need only a brief reminder of the point in the action where this splendid hymn occurs. The scene is a rocky gorge, in the second Act. The dead from a battle of the day before, among them King Dodon's two sons, lie on the hillside, and in the distance can be heard the approaching army of the King. They appear two by two and after them the King arrives and finds the bodies of his sons. As he mourns over them, day begins to break, and the morning sun shows a bright tent on the mountain side, ornamented with many-coloured brocade. As. the soldiers are about to fire on the tent, it is seen to move, and a beautiful maiden comes out with light, yet queenly, step. Four slaves follow her, carrying Eastern musical instruments. She herself wears a white turban with a tall feather, and a long robe of red silk with rich gold embroideries. Oblivious of those about her, she raises her hands, as though praying, and sings this Hymn to the Sun.
In an arrangement, such as this, for instruments, the music is hardly less effective than in its original operatic version.