The Lighter Classics in Music by David Ewen

sumptuous reception honors the Queen of Sheba. This dynamic piece of music is especially interesting for its Oriental melodies and lush orchestral colors. _In Spring_ (_Im Fruehling_), op. 36 (1889), is a concert overture for orchestra echoing the composer’s emotional reaction to the vernal season. The first main theme, in first violins accompanied by other strings, is given without any preliminaries. The second theme in violins is more bucolic, the woodwind suggesting bird calls in the background. Both themes are discussed and stormy episodes ensue. After the return of the two main themes the overture ends with a brilliant coda. The _Rustic Wedding Symphony_ (_Laendliche Hochzeit_), op. 26 (1876) is a programmatic composition for orchestra in five movements. The first is a “Wedding March” in which the main melody (given in fragments in the lower strings) is subjected to thirteen variations. The second movement is a “Bridal Song,” a lovely tune mainly for oboe in which the first-movement march subject occasionally intrudes in the background in the basses. This is followed by the third-movement “Serenade,” its main subject being a spacious melody mainly for the violins. The fourth movement, “In the Garden,” depicts the walk of two lovers in a garden as they exchange tender sentiments. The symphony ends with a vital “Dance,” in which the main theme receives fugal treatment. The concert overture for orchestra, _Sakuntala_, op. 13 (1865)—with which the composer achieved his first major success and which is still one of his most popular works—was based on the celebrated story of Kalidasa. Sakuntala is the daughter of a water nymph who is raised by a priest as his own daughter. The King falls in love with her and marries her, giving her a ring which will always identify her as his wife. A powerful priest, seeking revenge against Sakuntala, effects a loss of memory in the king, who now no longer recognizes her as his wife. To complicate matters further, Sakuntala has lost her ring while washing clothes in a sacred river. After being repudiated by the king as a fraud, Sakuntala returns to her water-nymph mother. The king’s memory is restored when the ring is found, and he is overwhelmed with grief at his loss of Sakuntala. A somber introduction is highlighted by a rippling subject in lower strings and bassoons suggesting the water which was Sakuntala’s original abode and to which she finally returns. After a change of tempo, clarinets and cellos in unison offer a beautiful love melody. This is followed by a hunting theme in first violins and oboes while the second violins and violas present a fragment of the love song as a countersubject. After this material has been amplified into a loud and dramatic climax there comes still a third idea, in oboes and English horn against chords in harp and arpeggios in strings. In a free fantasia section some of this material is reviewed after which the coda offers the hunting theme, and after that the love melody. A climax is realized with the hunting theme bringing the overture to a dramatic ending. Rubin Goldmark Rubin Goldmark, nephew of Karl, was born in New York City on August 15,