PAUL HERMANN (Violoncello)
THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conducted by Sir HENRY WOOD
Relayed from the Queen's Hall (First Performance in England)
MARCEL LABEY is a French composer, born in 1875, who after being one of d'Indy’s pupils at the Sehola Cantorum, became a Professor of Pianoforte there. He is a member of the Société Nationale de Musique, which since 1871 has given many concerts every year, to introduce the works of living French composers.
Labey's compositions include a three-act
Opera, Birengere, which won a prize in 1927, two Symphonies, an orchestral Fantasia, and this Overture for a Drama, besides sonatas and other chamber music, and songs.
ERNEST BLOCH , born in Switzerland of Jewish parents, forty-eight years ago, is notable as a composer who in several of his works set out to write music embodying the spirit of ancient Jewry, with its sombre dignity, its barbaric element, and its sense of remoteness and mystery.
He himself has said of his work :—
' It is not ray purpose, not my desire, to attempt a " reconstitution ” of Jewish music, or to base my work on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archaeologist. I hold it of first importance to write good, genuine music, my music. It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible: the freshness and naivete of the Patriarchs ; the violence that is evident in the prophetic books ; the Jew's savage love of justice ; the despair of the Preacher in Jerusalem; the sorrow and the immensity of the Book of Job ; the sensuality of the Song of Songs.'
The Symphony ' Israel* is in two main Movements, the first having an Introduction, which leads to the quick, agitated Movement proper. This contains music both wild and calm, but the storms of life do not subside in it for long.
The other Movement, which succeeds without break, is in gentler mood, and in this Bloch employed the voices of two Sopranos, two Altos and a Bass.
Spanish Caprice - Rimsky-Korsakov
Overture for a Drama - Labey
Symphony, ' Israel' - Block
