Relayed from the National Museum of Wales

National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)

(to 14.00)

National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)
Conducted by Warwick Braithwaite

In Mozart's opera Figaro, the page, Cherubino, dancing attendance on the Countess, is rather more attentive to her than his master, the Count, thinks at all desirable, and it is decided that the lad must embark on a more manly career. The Count arranges for him to join the Army, and in this merry song, Figaro, the Count's major-domo, chaffs him unmercifully; 'Now, no more,' he tells him, 'shall you spend your days amid ladies' smiles, surrounded by laces and ribbons, but among the roar of cannons and the clash of arms must you take your way.'

Completed in 1918, and published in 1922, Song Before Sunrise is inscribed by the composer, 'For Philip Heseltine,' who is known to listeners also under his composer's name, Peter Warlock. Scored for only woodwinds, two horns and strings, it begins with a fresh, happy melody, given chiefly to the strings in nine parts, with little snatches of tune on the woodwinds breaking in on it. The music changes to a more flowing measure and sinks to very soft tone, and after a moment of sudden strength and energy, returns to the opening melody. At the end it dies away softly and slowly, and the whole short piece is eloquent of its subject in Dolius' picturesque way.

An Evening with Great Men in a Somerset Village by Froom Tyler
Characters
Coleridge
Wordsworth
Southey
Dorothy Wordsworth
Scene I
At the House of Tom Poole in Nether Stowey, Somerset, 1797
Interlude
Glimpses of the Poets
Scene II
At Tom Poole's again, 1798
Epilogue
Nether Stowey: Revisited 1841
'Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combes..... - Wordsworth
Music by The National Orchestra of Wales (Strings only)
Songs by Margaret Williamson (Soprano)

(to 23.00)