Leader, Laurance Turner
Conductor, Gideon Fagan
The story of ' Sadko ' is that of the minstrel of Novgorod who is carried off by the Sea King's daughter and sets the whole submarine kingdom dancing to his music (thus causing an appalling storm on the surface of the ocean).
Rimsky-Korsakov's ' programme' is very simple and concise: Calm sea -Sadko's descent into the depths of the ocean-the Sea King's feast (Sadko's dance tune growing wilder and wilder as the storm arises)-calm sea as at the beginning. Incidentally, Rimsky-Korsakov used the themes of this early orchestral piece in his opera Sadko, composed twenty-eight years later.