Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
Slavonic Rhapsody Op 45/111

Written and patterned on the Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt, the character of these Dvorak works comes from specific nationalistic songs and dances. When this work was FP, conductor Hans Richter invited Dvorak to appear with him on the concert stage and Dvorak received one of the most memorable ovations of his life.

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Violin Concerto

Recognised as a leading impressionist of the natural world, Delius chose the perfect place in France for his home, Grez-sur-loing, close to the Forest of Fontainebleau. Here he lived with his wife, Jelka, from 1897 until his death in 1934. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in his Essays of Travel “It lies out of the forest, a cluster of old houses with an old bridge and an old castle in ruins and a quaint old church……and the river wanders hither and thither among the islets” Delius's house was near that church, with a long garden sloping down to the peaceful river.

Here, in 1916, the Violin Concerto was written, and was performed three years later in London by its dedicatee, Albert Sammons.

Less credit is accorded Delius for his ventures in ‘pure' music. Ernest Newman wrote: “One's first Impression..... It is formless”. Doubts as to the Concerto's aims have been voiced. “Rhapsodic” was a common view. “A condescending acceptance of a pleasant, but meaningless drift.” An existence of formal structure was not acknowledged.

Yet, as Deryck Cooke showed in his 1962 analysis, detailed in ‘The Delius Companion ,' the Concerto's flow of sound was a carefully crafted interpretation of classical Sonata-form. But instead of a conventional pattern of separate movements, Delius welded these into a unified whole.

With the intention to present the full work as a single, five-sectioned movement, he adopted the shape of First-movement Form. An Exposition (I) with First, Second and subsidiary Subjects, a slow Development (II), an extended accompanied Cadenza (III), the Recapitulation (IV) and a Coda (V) in the style of a Scherzo-Finale.

The two-bar beginning is more a statement of thematic and modal intent than an inconsequential introduction. The Exposition begins with the First Subject's elaborated descent from C to its lower octave, stated by the solo violin and cast within the Aeolian Mode. It is a theme that recurs in various guises throughout the Concerto. The subsidiary theme, or link, makes its first appearance just nine bars after the Concerto's beginning.

In contrast to the principal First Subject, it is written in a lilting 12/8, and alternates with its bolder parent in demanding our attention. But each time the latter is presented, it receives varied stylisation. Thus its second appearance is founded upon B flat, then on C, next on F for 'piano' brass chords, while the solo violin treats the theme to chromatic double-stopping. The fourth time marks its return to B flat for full orchestra. This is harmonically repeated seventeen bars later, without the brass, as a preliminary to the delivery of the Second Subject. This is a strident, almost hostile theme, centred around brassy chords of A major and G minor, its genesis the Concerto's first two bars. As if summoned to respond, the soloist replies to each of its three declarations in exhibitive up-reach across the strings. But it is the First Subject that virtually has the last quiet say before the Exposition closes on a pause, with oboe and cor anglais sharing a little figure in octaves based on rising fourths.

The considerable thematic manipulations within the Exposition make a Development (In its formal recognisable sense) seem superfluous, and the derivations for the slow section are not immediately apparent. Cast in the mould of a two-themed unit marked simply 'Slower', which is then re-stated in a varied form, lyricism is paramount. The first theme contains elements from the Concerto's beginning, the semiquaver figure of the First Subject being the most distinct feature.

It is the second tune however that brushes the senses with its haunting wistfulness. Initiated by that Delian fingerprint, the 'Scotch - snap'. In this case with a semiquaver-dotted quaver figure of syncopation, the theme seems to be standing aloof from the Concerto's main flow. Having first presented this, the soloist is content to let the First Violins have it to finish the section, while hovering about the tune like a moth seeking an elusive light.

The cadenza is no bravura passage for the solo violin, but an intricate pattern of arpeggios, triplets, double-stopping - a moving current of sound under which the orchestra provides a progression of chromatic harmonies. There is no mistaking the beginning of the Recapitulation. A full-bodied statement of the First Subject sets the tone. This is not a parallel re-run of the Exposition in the classically formal sense, although the ingredients are there again, if in varied dress. In any case, it is about a third shorter than the earlier section. Towards its end, the Second Subject's powered venom is given even more spite after the soloist's octaved ascents, the whole passage of eleven bars inspiring Eric Fenby to comment that its violence is suggestive of “Nature shaking its angry fist at us.”

If the Concerto is considered as a large-scale interpretation of First-movement Form, then the final section can be viewed as an extended Coda. Yet its 63 bars make it the second longest section of the whole work, only the Exposition having greater length, by only a dozen bars. Moreover, its Ternary shape (A-B-A), plus its own coda, gives it a special significance on its individual account.

Its principal 'Allegretto' theme, however, presents the soloist performing a balletic semiquaver accompaniment to an orchestral 12/8, whose upper melodic lines owes much to the original Aeolian Mode. Then, in the subsidiary part of this Ternary pattern, the semiquaver figuration is an indirect link to the Concerto's first bar.

Down a second from D to C, then up again to D went that motto. Now, towards the close of the work, It claims increasing attention in other keys A-G-A; G-F-G; E flat - D flat - E flat. The twenty-seven bars leading to the final pause contain last references to the First Subject, bringing the Concerto full circle back to its beginning.

These are but the barest of analytical bones, which, without any doubt, would have been tossed aside by Delius, who had said, “Cleverness counts for very little”. For him, form was “nothing more than imparting spiritual unity to one's thought, a means to other purpose”. So is it too fanciful to sense a feeling for nature as an underlying inspiration? Elemental forces seem to be astir, sometimes in restless activity, or in benign warmth, at least once in tumult, of which last Eric Fenby's 'angry fist' is the obvious example.

Water, too, was often a motivating stimulus for Delius, found in Appalachia , Sea-Drift , and the operas The Village Romeo and Juliet , The Magic Fountain' and lrmelin. So had his river at Grez a part to play In the Concerto's formulation?

At the end, as the First Subject's semiquaver figure revolves in our consciousness like a leaf floating on the mirrored surface, we seem to be there with Delius in his garden watching the Loin glide by. A scarcely-breathed chord of F major with its added sixth, itself a rounding-off of the Concerto by its kinship to the opening's minor chord of D, a solo flute's last little sigh, and the leaf disappears, bound for infinite waters.

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Symphony No 5

i. Andante-Allegro con anima ii. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza.
iii. Valse, (Allegro moderato) iv. Finale, (Andante maestoso-Allegro vivace)

Tchaikovsky's six symphonies fall into two groups of three, divided by the greatest emotional crisis in his life, the period in 1877 when anguish over his homosexuality drove him into a brief and disastrous marriage. The three earlier symphonies are fine works, but they do not bear the weight of feeling, especially the sense of struggle with fate, that gives the last three an altogether different stature. It was when he found a way of putting his inner life into music that he achieved a personal mastery of the symphonic form. He admitted that what he wrote always had "seams" showing, and that he lacked the true mastery of theme development as shown by composers such as Beethoven.

In fact it was Beethoven that gave him the idea of triumph over fate. This battle with emotions was first seen in Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, fate finally being avoided. In the fifth, he mounts a somewhat hollow triumph over it and in the sixth symphony, his last, fate triumphs over good. These three symphonies belong to his greatest creative years, the fifth symphony first being performed in 1888, five years before his death.

Tchaikovsky names the opening theme of his fifth symphony as providence rather than fate. The theme, played on clarinets, is sombre and grave, and serves as an introduction to the main part of the movement. It begins with a more cheerful even sprightly melody and the contrast between this and a more delicate theme may have had something to do with a note he left concerning the symphony about "the embraces of faith".

The slow movement is a love song without words, sung at first by a solo French Horn. Tchaikovsky left a tender message over a sketch for the work, and he used a similar theme in the love duet in "Swan Lake". The music rises to an impassioned climax, but Providence interrupts harshly. Even the waltz third movement, which has a wistful and delicate grace, doesn't run its course without a growl from Providence.

The last movement begins with Providence asserted. The theme returns later, and the climax of the entire work comes with a brave statement in which marching chords and flourishes of woodwind pronounce the final triumphal entry of Providence into the centre of the symphony, as if it had finally been accepted.