Alcoholic Civil Servant Breaks with Foreign Influence
Modest Mussorgsky
Prelude to Kovanschina
Night
on a Bare Mountain
"... a really Russian and original acheivement..."
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Capriccio Espagnol
"The change of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs and figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc., constitute here the very essence of the composition and not its garb or orchestration"
A National Holiday and a New Work
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No 5
The Finnish government pronounce a national holiday and commission a symphony to celibrate the composer's 50th birthday.