专辑简介

Strong rhythms and infectious spirit characterize the musical selections presented in this album by the Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Sylvan Levin. The program starts exuberantly with the Tarantella from Auber’s opera ‘Le Muette De Portici.’ Here the snappy Italian dance is transformed into a brilliant scherzo. This wild dance sets the rhythmic pace for the exhilarating ballet sequence, La Bohemienne from Verdi’s ‘Il Trovatore.’ This particular opera-ballet, incidentally, is never presented on today’s opera stages except in France. Verdi had expressly written this ballet music for the Paris Opera. Opera-ballet became a strong tradition in France during the nineteenth century. Charles Gounod, one of the masters of this tradition, incorporated a magnificent ballet in the fifth act of the opera ‘Faust.’ In this scene, known as the 'Walpurgis Nacht', Faust witnesses an unholy revelry in Mephistophele’s kingdom. Enchantment, the keynote of the ‘Faust’ ballet, is contrasted against another ballet from ‘The Wizard’ by Josef Holbrooke. In this whimsical excerpt by the English composer, the music skips nimbly to a scherzo rhythm. The Czardas, from Johann Strauss’ comic opera ‘Die Fledermaus’ (The Bat), is a study of contrasts. After a slow, minor opening, it builds into a wild dance and accelerates into a frenzied conclusion. Up and down rushing chromatic scales introduce Christiani’s The Spider whose web of music is spun as lightly and symmetrically as the one spun by the creature of nature who inspired this sprightly selection. Another lighthearted piece, Marion Black’s Colinette, dances to a pizzicato counterplay of strings and bells as the melody goes on a romantic boy-meets-girl intermezzo. A sparkling and melodramatic piece of Americana, Edvard Moritz’s Frontier, is a musical miniature of the early days of the West. The rhythms are boisterous, but the mystery of the unknown is felt throughout the work. Based on dances of the American Indian, this music utilized modern harmonies as a means of displaying the grandeur and excitement of those rigorous years. Herbert W. Fred also uses the palette of current harmonic devices in his impressionistic Moods Interlude as he paints a variegated musical picture of ever changing moods. The rhythmic and emotional range of this program is enhanced and contrasted by Bach’s Aria No. 4 from his ‘Cantata No. 128.’ Here solemn organ-like tones of the orchestra give an exalted reading to Bach’s sublime melody.