“Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.” – P. B. Shelley Here are melodies that provoke a particular mood or image... melodies that remain indelibly impressed in one’s thoughts... ever vivid and enduring. No better proof of their irresistable appeal can be offered than the inspired joining of these everlasting melodies in this ensemble concert under the sympathetic baton of Alfredo Antonini. In the opening selection, the lilting fascination of a Minuet weaves its way through the Antonini Orchestra. This immortal melody by Luigi Boccherini, a movement from one of his string quintets, has proved to be the most durable of all his creations. In Winter Lullaby, the season is skillfully mirrored in a miniature tone poem by Polish composer, Jan Ekier. The tender measures of its evocative oboe melody recall the imposing beauty of a snowclad landscape. One of Ekier’s countrymen, Wiktor Labunski, is featured next in the jaunty performance of his frolicking March Of The Marionettes. Adagio is a noble melody of solemn, classical beauty by Arcangelo Corelli, the great seventeenth century master who is often called the “father of string music”. Then, evening blossoms forth with the expression and imagery of Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise In A Flat. This stately dance form of Polish ballroom is captured on the larger canvas of the symphonic orchestra that blends bravura piano passages (Jascha Zayde, soloist) with a glowing ensemble sound. It has been said, and with justification, that the history of Roumanian music began with the activities of Georges Enesco. To open the second side, the orchestra offers his Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1, a musical picture of Enesco’s native land, blending its whirling and fiery dance rhythms with plaintive laments. Heard next is Jules Massenet’s Elegie, a sensuous melody ideally suited for the expressive facilities of the ‘cello. The soloist is the renowned concert cellist, Lucien Schmit. Julius Baker is the flute soloist in the light and capricious ballad which follows. October Song, by American composer, Harry Huffnagle, contains fleeting impressions of early Fall, skillfully interpreted in a playful dialoge of orchestral voices. Another American composer, Virgil Thomson, is represented by the rich-textured Cantabile For Strings, and the album concludes with the sharp, biting harmonies of Alla Marcia, the first movement from the Divertimento by the contemporary Belgian composer, Marcel Poot.