Relayed from Queen's Hall, London
(Sole Lessees, Messrs. Chappell and Co., L.'d )
THE B B C
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Led by MARIE WILSON
Conducted by Sir HENRY J. WOOD
Part II
Introduction and Allegro, for String
Quartet and String Orchestra. .Elgar
Elgar has told us that this piece owes its inception to a tune which he once heard sung in the distance, when he was on holiday in Wales-a tune that impressed him particularly -by its cadence of a falling third. From it he evolved the main theme, sufficiently like a Welsh tune to be. taken for real folk music. Later, another song heard in the Wye valley confirmed the first impression, and the work was carried to completion. It appeared in March, 1905, at the same time as the third ' Pomp and Circumstance ' March.
It has been said of this Octet, one of the finest of Mendelssohn's chamber music pieces, that it is much more a symphony scored for a string orchestra than true chamber music. Indeed, Mendelssohn appears to have anticipated this criticism, for he desired that the Octet should be played in symphonic style. The Scherzo, the third movement in the Octet was re-scored for orchestra by the composer himself for a concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, which he conducted in 1829. This graceful little movement is, according to the composer, an attempt at a description of the Walpurgis Night in Goethe's Faust.
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