Leader, BERTRAM Lewis
Conductor, RICHARD AUSTIN
Solo viola, LIONEL TERTIS
Relayed from
The Pavilion, Bournemouth
(Solo viola, LIONEL TERTIS)
Vaughan Williams 's Suite for viola and orchestra was specially composed for Lionel Tertis , to whom it is dedicated. It was first performed at a Courtauld-Sargent concert in the autumn of 1034. It consists of seven short pieces divided into three groups : Group I. Prelude, Carol, Christmas Dance ; Group II. Ballad, Moto Perpetuo ; Group III. Musette, Polka Melancholique, Galop. The Suite as a whole is full of the most captivating music, each piece being simple in construction, melodious, and delicately scored. It is one of Vaughan Williams's most charming works.
From Rimsky-Korsakov's own remarks made to his friends and from his memoirs, we know quite a lot about the pictorial details of 'Scheherazade'. The first movement was entitled ' The Sea and Sindbad's Ship!'. The piece as a whole is ' a seascape with white-crested waves ', while the smoothly-sailing ship is suggested by a beautifully tranquil little passage that recurs three times in the course of the movement.
The second movement is ' The Tale of the Kalandar Prince '. Answering fanfares are heard on the brass, and the composer told one of his friends that in the passage that follows ' one might see a fight'.
Rimsky-Korsakov was more reticent about the third movement, ' The Young Prince and the Young Princess ', though, of course, the beginning sketches the Prince and the middle the Princess '. And this middle part is intended to suggest a procession.
The last movement begins with a 'Festival in Baghdad' and passes imperceptibly and without a break into ' The Shipwreck on the Rock with the Bronze Warrior'.