Product Description

The musical tour starts in the Bernese Alps, which offer some of the finest scenery in Switzerland, with glaciers and snow-covered expanses, waterfalls, mountain lakes, and the towering Matterhorn. The Nymphenburg Palace and Park, in Munich, present a contrast in their baroque elegance. The tour ends with glimpses of the Chiemsee, the largest of the Bavarian lakes, with its three wooded islands, on one of which Wagner's patron, King Ludwig II, built his folly, the Schloss Herrenchiemsee. Music for the tour is taken from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, one of the best known of all romantic concertos. This is followed by his Souvenir d'un lieu cher, three pieces originally for violin and piano, but here orchestrated by the composer Glazunov, a gentler memento of a stay at the country estate of his generous and unseen patron, Nadezhda von Meck in Ukraine at a time of some personal difficulty, after the failure of his marriage.