Louis Godowsky, the Polish musician, enjoys a treble celebrity. He is in the front rank of modern pianists; his own compositions (including the recent Javanese Suite-the fruit of an extended visit to the East) are well known the world over; and his pianoforte arrangements of orchestral and other works are acknowledged by the critics to be unexampled in our own time - as a master-transcriber he is the direct successor of Liszt. His reappearance in London after twelve years is a musical event of great importance.
5.20-5.30 Tales from the Old Testament
The Giving of the Law (Exodus, Ch. xxxiii and xxxiv, v. 1-9)
'And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments...
And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh ; and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.'
(Original drawing by E. McKnight Kauffer.)
(Born in Hungary, 1811 ; died at Bayreuth, 1886) BELLA BAILLIE (Soprano) ; ERWIN SCHULHOFF (Pianoforte) ; THE WIRELESS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, conducted by PERCY PITT
ORCHESTRA
Artists' Festival Procession
Liszt wrote this festal piece for the celebration
In 1839 of the centenary of the birth of the poet Schiller.
BELLA BAILLIE , with Orchestra
Prayer from ' The Legend of Saint Elizabeth'
SCHULHOFF, with Orchestra
First Pianoforte Concerto
LISZT'S First Concerto had a distinguished send-off, for at its first performance, in 1855, he himself played the Solo part and Berlioz conducted.
It has three Movements (the first comprising a quiet and a slow section), all of which are joined together; and some of the chief themes appear more than once.
FIRST MOVEMENT (Quick, with majesty).
The First Main Tune is given out by the Full Orchestra. After a quieter section for tho Piano, the slow Second Main Tune is heard in the Strings, gently rising and falling, before being given out by the Solo instrument. The Flute and, immediately after it, the. Clarinet, have a Third Tune (which is to be heard again in tho Last Movement).
SECOND MOVEMENT. (Fairly quick, vivacious).
Tho Triangle is much used here. It introduces a new Main Tune, which Strings expound. This Movement, in a gay and capricious spirit, leads again without interruption into the THIRD MOVEMENT (Quick, martial, animated)
Beginning with the Slow melody we heard before, we have next the Flute's Third Tune, and changed but quite recognizable versions of the melody of the vivacious Movement.
ORCHESTRA
Symphonic Poem, 'Orpheus '
THE basic idea of this, the fourth of Liszt's Symphonic Poems, came into the Composer's mind in 1854, when he was conducting rehearsals of Gluck's Orpheus.
Ho thought of a representation he had seen of the ' first poet-musician,' on an Etruscan vase in the Louvre at Paris, and, pondering upon the mastery that Orpheus exercised over wild beasts, he tried in his work (to use his own words) ' to picture the serene, civilizing character of the melodies which beam forth from every work of art; their suave energy, their august dominion, their sonorousness, that fills the soul with noble ecstasy, their undulations, soft as the breezes of Elysium, their gradual rising. like clouds of incense, their clear azure ether, enveloping the world and the whole universe as in an atmosphere, as in a transparent garment of ineffable and mysterious harmony.
BELLA BAILLIE
Dio Lorelei
SCHULHOFF
Don Juan Fantasie
ORCHESTRA
First Hungarian Rhapsody
LISZT'S First Rhapsody begins with a dignified section (corresponding to the Lassan of the gipsies) containing two Main Tunes. The First is in a minor key, and the Second resembles the well-known Rakoozy March (with Berlioz's treatment of which most listeners are familiar).
Next comes a lively section in the style of the gipsies' Friska dances. The music works up in speed and brilliance, the First Main Tune occurring again, and a fourth Tune appearing before the exciting finish of the work.
Contributors
Soprano:
Bella
Baillie
Soprano:
Erwin
Schulhoff
Conducted By:
Percy
Pitt
Unknown:
Bella
Baillie
Unknown:
Bella
Baillie
Unknown:
Dio
Lorelei
Unknown:
Don Juan
Fantasie