Conductor,
SIR DAN GODFREY
THELMA REISS (violoncello)
Relayed from
The Pavilion, Bournemouth
(Symphony Concert No. 23
[of the 39th Winter Series)
(First Performance)
ELIZABETH MACONCHY , who is as yet only in her mid-twenties, is Irish by birth. She studied at the Royal College of Music, where she was a scholar, and later went abroad-to Prague and elsewhere-with a travelling scholarship. In 1930 her pianoforte Concerto was given by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the same year her Suite, ' The Land ', was introduced by Sir Henry Wood at the Proms. Since then several of her works have been broadcast and played in London.
In 1933 her Oboe quintet won a prize in the Daily Telegraph Competition for Chamber music, and was subsequently broadcast.
This ' Comedy Overture ' was written as the prelude to a comic opera, but is also intended to be an individual concert piece. It opens with a march-like theme, which soon way to a vigorous figure in the violins ; this is treated almost fugally, and in its turn leads to a gay little tune. (introducing repeated notes) first heard on the trumpet. From these three themes, which are developed and used in combination, the overture is chiefly constructed, though a new and fairly extended tune of a genial and flowing character is introduced in the course of the work.
'Some meet their heaviest trials at the first,
Some at the ending of the way,
Some too are visited, it seems, through all their lives.'
GERRARD WILLIAMS'S Elegiac Rhapsody is a reflection on a simple yet tragic life, the clue to which lies in the final sentence of this extract from the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis ; hence there is no main climax, but rather a series. It is built almost entirely on two motives (i) three rising notes, with which the short introduction opens, depicting hope, which is constantly dashed by the ' harrowing cares ' typified by (2) a hammering syncopated rhythm also appearing in the introduction. Twice during the work, after a rhymthic climax, there is a fresh subject descriptive of despair played first by clarinet and then by violins, over an ostinato bass consisting of the ' hope ' theme on muted horns, bassoons and pizzicato strings. At the end the introduction re-appears and dies away with final references to (i) on celesta and harp and (2) on drums.
GLAZOUNOV has always been a composer acceptable to English audiences, and from the first his symphonies were performed in England very soon after their first production abroad. This Symphony, the Eighth, had its first English preformance at the Leeds Festival in 1907 ; it has been played often since, but it is scarcely likely to exceed in popularity Glazounov's Sixth, which was written in his best period and at about the same time as the equally popular Ballet, Raymonda.