George Pizzey (baritone)
BBC Chorus (Chorus-Master, Leslie Woodgate )
Philharmonia Orchestra (Leader, Manoug Parikian)
Conducted by Constant Lambert
Symphony No. 3, in A minor (The Unfinished) ... Borodin
18.36 app. Interval: Alan Frank talks about Constant Lambert's 'Summer's Last Will and Testament'
18.43 app. Summer's Last Will and Testament, a Masque for orchestra, chorus, and baritone solo ... Constant Lambert
Borodin, who was a doctor and a professor of chemistry as well as a composer, died suddenly on February 27, 1887, at the age of fifty-three while attending a dance given by the professors of the Academy of Medicine at St. Petersburg. It is symbolical of the general character of his music that he was dressed at the time in Russian national costume. He had spent that very day working at his third symphony, two movements of which were almost finished. Subsequently Glazunov completed and orchestrated them, and they were played for the first time at a concert given in memory of Borodin, and conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Summer's Last Will and Testament, which was first performed at a BBC Symphony Concert in 1936, has words 'taken from pleasant comedy of that name written in 1593 by Thomas Nashe.' (The title of Nashe's comedy, by the way, contains a punning allusion to Will Summers, Henry VlII 's jester.) The masque has seven movements designed to be performed without a break. Intrata (Pastorale and Siciliana), for orchestra, is followed by a setting of 'Fair Summer droops.' Then a Coranto (to the well-known words Spring, the sweet Spring ') leads to a Brawles ('Trip and go, heave and ho'). 'Autumn hath all the Summer's fruitful treasure' is the text of a Madrigal con ritornelli; then comes a Rondo Burlesca for orchestra, 'King Pest,' based on a tale by Edgar Allan Poe. The work closes with a Saraband to words beginning ' Adieu, farewell earth's bliss. Harold Rutland