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Conductors, ADRIAN BOULT and Sir DAN GODFREY
EDA KERSEY (Violin)
Relayed from THE PAVILION, BOURNEMOUTH

DVORAK'S success in English-speaking countries while at the height of his career was duo to fortuitous circumstances. Brahms' friendship for him naturally influenced Brahms' friends, many of whom were English. He had, too, an astute publisher who knew that trade followed the pianoforte duet. He was invited to England, triumphed, and was asked again and again. Presently America had need of him. He was offered, and ho accepted, the directorship of the New York National Conservatory of Music, remained there greatly appreciated for three years, and absorbed a flood of national impressions. Of these he made good use in a number of works of that period, particularly in the New World Symphony, one of the most brilliant symphonies in the whole repertory.

Contributors

Conductors:
Adrian Boult
Conductors:
Sir Dan Godfrey

Sir JOHN RUSSELL , F.R.S. (Director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station): ‘Why do we not grow more food t'
OXE of the chief problems of the present time, when nearly sixty per cent. of our food is imported, is that of making the most of our own agricultural land. Sir John Russell , who at the Rothamsted Station directs important research into scientific methods of farming, begins this evening a series of talks which will state, and suggest solutions of, the agricultural problems of today.

Contributors

Unknown:
Sir John Russell
Unknown:
Sir John Russell

Relayed from The Queen's Hall, London
(Sole Lessees, Messrs. Chappell & Co., Ltd.)

B.B.C. Symphony Concert
Tonight at 8.15 Prokofiev
The B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra
(Leader, Arthur Catterall) conducted by Sir Henry Wood

Orchestra
Overture, Oberon...Weber

Carl Maria von Weber was thirty-nine when he died in London of consumption. He had aggravated his disease and worn himself out, first by toiling at the composition of the opera, Oberon, which the Covent Garden authorities had commissioned from him, and, secondly, by conducting a series of performances of his operas at Covent Garden Theatre and a number of concerts in London, in fulfilment of his contract. He had entered into this contract, knowing his end was near, with the sole object of making provision for his family, for it was to bring in at least a thousand pounds.

Never was money more painfully earned. While still at home he wrote: 'My Oberon has to be finished by the winter. I am very ill, wretched beyond all words, and incapable of work of any kind.' He took it with him unfinished to London, and completed it there. He reported progress to his wife : I I gave myself leave to write to you only when I had finished my aria.... Now there's only a bit of the Overture, and one more opera will be brought to the birth. God grant it may be some good! I don't think much of it, for I like my music less and less every day.' But Oberon is far from being the work of a sick man, and the Overture is as virile a piece of music, for all its romantic flavour and delicate beauty, as has ever been composed.

Symphony No. 1 in A Flat...Elgar
Andante, allegro; Allegro motto; Adagio; Lento, allegro

Sir Edward Elgar had already composed his three great choral works, The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles, and The Kingdom, before he turned his thoughts to writing a symphony, and he had passed his fiftieth year when the work in A Flat had its first performance in Manchester, in December, 1908. It was conducted by Hans Richter, 'True artist and true friend,' in the terms of the dedication, and introduced by him to London. In a very short time it was heard in every city of musical importance in the world, and had reached its hundredth performance before year was out. This noble work established Elgar as a symphonic writer in the direct tradition. It was the first of a series of works in symphonic form composed by him during the next few years, a period marked by the majestic expenditure of his faculties as a mature artist. The Second Symphony, Falstaff, and the Violin Concerto belong to this period, and the steady flow was interrupted only by the War.

Part II: 9.35. Prokofiev and Orchestra
Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26, for Pianoforte and Orchestra...Prokofiev
Andante, allegro; Andantino, tema con variazioni; Allegro ma non troppo

As a young man of thirty Serge Prokofiev gained considerable reputation with an opera based on a fairy tale of Carlo Gozzi, called 'The Love for Three Oranges.' Gozzi was a satirist, and Prokofiev's grotesque music, with its complete repudiation of the romantic, was held to be admirably suited to the play by those to whom his music definitely appealed. But Prokofiev himself makes no attempt whatever to appeal to any section of an audience, certainly not to that larger part of it for whom music is essentially an emotional medium. He is content to present his music as a decorative pattern, much as the Cubists do their canvases, and the pattern is as angular and symmetrical. But there is in his rhythms an energy and a sense of purpose that impart to the listener a physical exhilaration that few are able to resist. Prokofiev, like his fellow countryman, Rachmaninov, is a pianist of the first rank, and appears frequently in Europe and America as a soloist, particularly as a brilliant interpreter of his own compositions.

Orchestra
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Bach (orch. Klenovsky)

Bach was himself a highly skilled organ solo player, and he wrote a number of works for the instrument expressly to display his powers as a virtuoso. His principal concert organ works were written during the time he spent at Weimar, from where each autumn he toured the large German towns, giving recitals and astonishing his hearers with his brilliant playing. This Toccata, one of the most popular of all Bach's concert works, is also one of the most impressive. He was still a young man when he wrote it, probably round about thirty, and it marks, as Schweitzer says, 'the strong and ardent spirit finally realizing the laws of form.' It is full of fire and imagination, and both in structure and in substance it Iends itself admirably to orchestral colouring.

National Programme Daventry

About National Programme

National Programme is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 9th March 1930 and ended on the 9th September 1939. It was replaced by BBC Home Service.

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About this data

This data is drawn from the Radio Times magazine between 1923 and 2009. It shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was subject to change and may not be accurate. More