(Section B)
Leader, ARTHUR CATTERALL
Conductor, ADRIAN BOULT
A Lovely Tone Picture
The Prelude to Mussorgsky's Khovansh- china, an opera which he began immediately after Boris, but never finished, is one of the loveliest tone-pictures in the whole range of Russian music. It depicts dawn in the famous Red Square, Moscow-the sleeping city, the quiet flow of the river. Presently the clang of bells ringing for matins is heard. The sunlight begins to glitter on the cupolas of the Kremlin. ... This peaceful tone-picture is in striking contrast with the violence and turbulence of the drama it introduces.
Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony
In his analysis of Tchaikovsky's ' Pathetic' Symphony, Sir Donald Tovey says : ' Nowhere else has he concentrated so great a variety of music within so effective a scheme ; and the slow finale, with its complete simplicity of despair, is a stroke of genius which solves all the artistic problems that have proved most baffling to symphonic writers since Beethoven. The whole work carries conviction without the slightest sense of effort; and its most celebrated features, such as the second subject of the first movement, are thrown into their right relief by developments far more powerful, terse, and highly organised than Tchaikovsky has achieved in any other work.'