MONTEUX The First NBC Concerts, Vol. 2

"The performances reveal the qualities that made Monteux such a beloved figure in Europe and the United States for many decades. He was one of those rare conductors who could make a performance sound special without any specific interpretive idiosyncrasy. There is nothing in his music-making that calls attention to itself, and yet the listener is completely drawn into the music’s spell..." - Fanfare magazine

This week we bring you the second of three introductory concerts for the newly-hatched NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Monteux. Monteux certainly made the most of his opportunity, conducting works by no less than 15 different composers over his three weeks in charge.

This second programme offers a little of everything: beginning with a Weber overture and then a Concerto Grosso by Handel. Then a truncated Sibelius Symphony No. 1, which is followed by Griffes' The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan (a 1915 work that supposedly came to the composer in a dream), followed by the prelude to Wagner's Lohengrin and finally the Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2.