London Chamber Singers
John Shinebourne (cello)
London Chamber Orchestra
(Leader, Andrew Cooper )
Conductor, Anthony Bernard
'Les Amours de Ronsard,* which is dedicated to the memory of Debussy, comprises settings of four poems by the ' prince of poets ' (as Ronsard was called by his contemporaries in France), belonging to the years 1555-6. The first is in praise of the rose; the second takes the form of a dialogue between Ronsard and a dove who laments the loss of his mate; the third is a description of a hawthorn* tree; the last is in praise of the nightingale.
Both the Divertimenti in this evening's programme admirably suggest that their chief function is to divert or to entertain the listener. The one by Mozart belongs to the year 1772, when he was sixteen. Lennox Berkeley's, which was commissioned by the BBC, was written in 1942 and dedicated to Nadia Boulanger.
Harold Rutland