(for details see top of page)
[Photo caption] Barbirolli, from a portrait by H.J. Lintott
The BBC Symphony Orchestra
Leader, Paul Beard Conducted by John Barbirolli
From the Corn Exchange, Bedford
7.15 Sinfonietta (First performance) .... E.J. Moeran (See Ralph Hill's note on page 4)
7.41 Symphonic Fragments, Daphnis and Chloe (Second series) ....... Ravel
The story of Daphnis and Chloe based on the pastoral by Longus, is concerned with the ingenuous love of a shepherd for a shepherdess. The smooth course is upset by a country bumpkin named Dorcon who presses his unworthy attentions on Chloe. At the same time another shepherdess does her best to secure Daphnis. Finally Chloe is carried off by pirates, but is rescued through the aid of the god Pan.
The second suite is taken from the third and last scenes of the ballet. At dawn Chloe, who has been rescued from her abductors by Pan, finds Daphnis lying prostrate before the grove consecrated to the nymphs. They embrace, and Lammon an old shepherd, explains that Pan has saved Chloe in memory of his love for the nymph Syrinx. In their gratitude to Pan the lovers enact in pantomime the story of Pan's wooing of Syrinx. The finale is a general dance of rejoicing.
These three pieces certainly show Ravel at his most inspired, and although he applies an impressionistic technique here and there, notably in the first piece, 'Daybreak,' both material and shape of the three pieces are symbolically conceived with the utmost classical purity.
7.58 Interval : Symphonies and Everyday life : talk by Alec Robertson
8.13 Symphony No. 2, in D ............... Brahms
In 1854 Schumann told the twenty-two-year-old Brahms that it was his 'duty' to write a symphony. Brahms set to work, but soon declared that the attempt was a miserable failure, for 'a symphony is no laughing matter nowadays.' At last, after twenty-two more years of careful thought and experimenting, he completed his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, which was hailed as a worthy successor to Beethoven's 'Ninth.' Hardly had the applause of the world of music died down when Brahms produced his Symphony No. 2 in D.
If the tragic C minor Symphony was a great success, the D major with its happier and more idyllic feelings was an even greater one. The enthusiasm it aroused made it necessary for the light-footed and graceful third movement to be repeated. Although conceived on just as big a scale as the C minor Symphony, the musical texture of the Symphony No. 2 in D is very much clearer, the melodies more cantabile in character, and the whole spirit of the music brighter. It has been called Brahms's 'Pastoral' Symphony. (Ralph Hill)
