Leader, ALFRED CAVE
Conducted by LESLIE HEWARD
PAUL BEARD (violin)
ANTHONY PINI (violoncello)
Relayed from
The Town Hall, Birmingham

This fifth Symphony of Tchaikovsky, and its younger and still more emotional brother, the ' Pathetic', appear to be two of the most popular among the symphonies written since Beethoven. The Fifth Symphony in E minor is too well known to need close description. Those to whom it is not yet familiar should first know that there is a ' Motto ' theme that binds the four movements together. It is the chief subject of the sombre Introduction that leads to the swinging first movement ; it is noisily declaimed and abruptly sounded at the climax of the romantic second movement; near the end of the Waltz which forms the third movement it enters, in the bass, with a suggestion of mockery ; and as the spirited fourth movement works to a climax it is thundered out triumphantly in the major key.

A Programme of Songs Old and New