(Leader, ALFRED CAVE)
Conducted by LESLIE HEWARD
VICTOR HELY-HUTCHINSON
(pianoforte)
ORCHESTRA
Antiche Danze ed Arie (Old Italian
Dances and Airs)..... arr.
Respighi I. Balletto , II Conte Orlando (Ballet Count Orlando); 2. Gagliarda (Galliard); 3. Villanella (Villanelle); 4. Passo mezzo i mascherada (Masquerade)
THE MOVEMENTS of this Suite are arrangements for a modern orchestra of old Italian dances and dance-tunes. Respighi has proved himself a crafts-man of great skill and fine taste in producing acceptable suites of this nature. Listeners will recall another series of antique dances, taken from the older lute composers. and arranged for a modern string orchestra, which was introduced into a recent programme ; if many listeners did not hear that suite they must certainly have heard the famous arrangement of Rossini's music which forms ' La Boutique Fantasque '. This music was originally put together to form one of the most successful of the Ballet Russe productions under Diaghileff; it has survived the stage and will delight listeners many years to come. VICTOR HELY-HUTCHINSON
AND ORCHESTRA
OF SCHUMANN'S works in the larger forms, far the finest are those produced from 1841 to 1845. Towards the end of 1840, he and Clara Wieck were happily married, after long suspense and many difficulties, in the course of which Schumann had actually to go to law with his prospective bride's father. His warm-hearted admiration for his wife's gifts as a pianist, her devotion to the works which he wrote for her to play, acted and reacted on each other with the happiest results for the whole world of music.
The first movement of this Concerto, composed in 1841, was intended at first to stand alone as a Fantasy. Four years later the other two movements were added to complete the Concerto as we know it now.
THE ITALIAN SERENADE is, with the exception of a very early quartet for strings, the only chamber music work written by Hugo Wolf , who was pre-eminently a song-writer. The Serenade exists for small orchestra. It was first performed as a quartet in Vienna in 1904, the year following Wolf's death, and quickly became popular with chamber music players.
THE VARIATION form has always been a popular one with composers, and some of the finest compositions of the great masters have been constructed from a theme and attendant variations. The form was a favourite as far back as Tudor times and several examples have come down to us from Byrd and others. But it is upon a few outstanding modern examples that our interest centres today, and it is only necessary to mention Elgar's ' Enigma ' Variations, Dvorak's ' Symphonic Variations ' , the last movement of Tchaikovsky's 3rd Suite, and this superb work of Brahms, to realise that the form is still as vigorously 'and beautifully alive as it has ever been. This magnificent set of Variations was, with the exception of two early Serenades, the first one that Brahms wrote for orchestra. He took the theme from a Divertimento in B flat by Haydn, who called it Choral St. Antonii, a melody which may have been of folk-song origin. The work consists of the theme, eight Variations, and a lengthy, imposing Finale.
(From Birmingham)