Leader, BERTRAM LEWIS
Conductor, RICHARD AUSTIN
. Solo pianoforte, HOWARD JONES
1 Relayed from the Pavilion, Bournemouth
(Solo pianoforte, HOWARD JONES)
Evlyn Howard-Jones is one of the foremost British interpreters of Beethoven and Brahms. He began his musical life at the age of twelve as a deputy church organist. He then entered the Royal College of Music and won several scholarships, and after a few years went to Germany to finish his musical education under Eugene d'Albert. Mr. Howard-Jones is equally well known as a fine pianist in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Holland, Scandinavia, America and Canada.
' Death and Transfiguration ' is one of the earliest of Strauss's symphonic poems. It was completed in 1889 when the composer was only twenty-five. Orginally the score was prefaced by a poem of Alexander Rittcr , which was, ' however, written after Strauss's music, and therefore may be considered as a kind of commentary on the music.
' Death and Transfiguration' is
divided into four sections : (i) the sick man lies in his bed and dreams of ' childhood's golden day ' ; (2) then comes a fierce, delirious fight with Death. Once again there follows stillness ; (3) the dying man reviews all his past life. At length there comes
, a briefer, fiercer struggle, in which * Death strikes its final blow; (4) the stillness of death is succeeded by the Transfiguration.