Conducted by Julius Harrison
THE AUGMENTED STATION ORCHESTRA
HANS SACHS, the cobbler-poet of Nuremberg, is championing the cause of the young knight Walter, whom some of the pedantic Mastersingers are chary of welcoming to their Guild. Early in the morning of Midsummer Day Sachs sits in his room, a great volume on his lap, and meditates on men's incessant, bitter strife with one another (in the night half the town had been fighting in the street over a trivial affair) and considers how he may turn it to the ends he has in view - the furthering of Walter's fortunes with the Guild, and helping the youth to win the maiden he loves.
FRANCK'S music is serious and often highly emotional, sometimes mystical, always deeply felt and generally extremely beautiful. His only Symphony has three Movements. FIRST MOVEMENT. There is a slow Introduction. Note its opening Tune in the Lower Strings ; a great deal grows out of this. Then comes a quick passage in which that opening Tune is extended and stiffened into something very vigorous and forceful-really the First Main Tune of the Movement. Then the slow passage returns; the quick First Main Tune is heard again, and is now followed by a Second Main Tune-a tender one, opening, in Strings alone, with a scale-wise ascent of four notes, by which it can easily be recognized whenever it returns. This material is developed for a little time, and then there grows up an orchestral climax, and at its height there is a triumphant syncopated tune for Full Orchestra-a Third Main Tune. From this point on it is a matter of development, and then of recapitulation of the material heard, and listeners should by now be well acquainted with this. The SECOND MOVEMENT moves at a gentle, but not slow speed. Plucked Strings and Harps begin with a tender melancholy. In a moment the Cor Anglais (Alto Oboe) creeps in with a graceful tune. A somewhat livelier mood is represented by the middle portion of the Movement, and then the pensive mood returns. THIRD MOVEMENT (Not too quick). This is a Movement of imposing strength and vigour. After five or six bars of Introduction, the 'Cellos enter with the joyous First Tune. The Second Tune, some little time later, cannot be missed; it opens with a dignified phrase for Brass alone. From these Tunes, and several from the preceding Movements, a magnificent Finale is evolved.