Leader, HAROLD F. PETTS
Conductor, ERNEST W. GOSS
JOAN COXON (soprano)
Solo violin, LOUIS GODOWSKY
Relayed from The Pavilion, Torquay
Overture, Russian and Ludmilla Glinka
Russian and Ludmilla, Glinka's second opera, was first performed in 1842. His earlier A Life for the Tsar has a place in the history books as ' the first Russian opera ', but in musical value Russlan towers high above it. Glinka himself said it would be easy to turn out ten operas like A Life for the Tsar from the material of Russlan.' So Russlan is the first real masterpiece of Russian opera.
Von Bulow once said of Berlioz's
' Corsair ' Overture that it was ' as terse as a pistol shot ', and the phrase is equally applicable to this overture of Glinka's. Nothing could be more concise and economical. There is not a note thrown away, not a redundant bar in the whole piece. And Glinka nowhere shows greater command of the orchestra. Such masters of instrumentation as Berlioz and Rimsky-Korsakov have paid repeated tribute to Glinka's genius for brilliant, translucent scoring ; and one has only to listen t6 the Rtlsslan Overture to recognise it.