Louis PECSKAI (Solo Violin)
THE WIRELESS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(Leader, S. KNEALE KELLEY)
Conducted by Sir LANDON RONALD

Once a year in Leipzig the proceeds of a special performance of opera or play are devoted to the pension fund of the orchestra. In 1839 Victor Hugo's play Ruy Blas was selected, and Mendelssohn was asked to write an overture and incidental music for the occasion. He disliked the play wholly, and at first he refused, but the object for which it was being given appealed to him so much that he relented. By then only a few days were left for the task, and it is on record that the overture was conceived and completed, ready for the band parts to be copied, between a Tuesday evening and the following Friday morning. A chorus for women's voices was also completed during these same days. Mendelssohn mentions both works in a letter to his mother, referring to this overture as 'The Overture to the Pension Fund.'

There are four main themes, one which begins with only a few bars of solemn introduction, and follows with an* energetic figure of tragic import, a soaring melody mainly in quavers, a more suave and gracious tune, and last a vigorous stirring theme suggesting pomp and chivalry.