Leader, Frank Thomas
Conducted by Mansel Thomas
Beethoven's ' Coriolanus ' is based not on Shakespeare's play, but on an entirely different play by a German named Heinrich Collin. From every point of view it is one of Beethoven's greatest orchestral works, particularly with regard to its compact construction and beauty of orchestral colouring. Although the music has no definite programme, as Sir Donald Tovey points out, ' Wagner was right in describing Beethoven's overture as a musical counterpart to the turning-point in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, the scene in the Volscian camp before the gates of Rome (Act V, Sc. iii).

by E. J. Richards from Tabernacle Chapel, Cardiff