GUILDFORD
CORPORATION
- CONCERTS
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC
VERNON HANDLEY
GUILDFORD
PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Leader: WILLIAM ARMON
FESTIVAL CHOIR
THE FOURTH
CONCERT
IN THE
ENTERPRISING
SERIES
SATURDAY,
CONDUCTOR
VERNON HANDLEY
PROGRAMME
6d.
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FESTIVAL
CHOIR
The Festival Choir is the largest of the three choirs under the conductorship of the
Musical Director. It meets on Monday evenings at 7.15 p.m. in the Methodist Hall,
North Street, and is mainly concerned with the performance of large choral works
with orchestra.
Its numbers are in the region of 120 and at present there are a
few vacancies for tenors. The training and running of such a choir is not the work
of one man and the Musical Director wishes to acknowledge with thanks the help
he has received from the assistant conductor, Kenneth Lank, and accompanist
Mary Rivers, and from Mrs. D. W. Wren and Mrs. D. Hutchings who have given
much time to a seating plan to accommodate both choirs.
PROGRAMME
Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Orchestra,
Opus 26 .
Boris Blacher
Boris Blacher was born in 1903 in China of German parents and grew up in Siberia.
He settled in Berlin in the Twenties and studied at the High School for Music. As
a composer, Blacher learned much from his contemporaries but has formed his own
individual style, even though a great deal of his music has been experimental. His
best known works are his two Piano Concertos and the Orchestral variations to be
heard this evening. The theme is the Paganini Caprice for Violin which has been
used by a number of composers, notably Brahms and Rachmaninov. Blacher says
of this work: ‘‘The Orchestral Variations (16 in number) were written in 1947.
Few of them contain the well-known theme from Paganini’s Caprices in its entirety.
Most of them make use of important elements from it, sometimes several of them
simultaneously.” This is an extremely modest summing up of a brilliant free treatment of the thematic material. The work delights in colourful orchestration, at
times sonorous and rich and at times, as in the eleventh variation, light and pointilliste. The climax of the set is No. fifteen, which is in alternately 4/4 and 5/4 time
and consists of two sections; the first a set of two bar groups for the horns punctuated
by loud chords on the orchestra and the second, a variation for the solo clarinet
with divisi ‘cello accompaniment. In several of the variations, the influence of jazz
can be felt. In some the theme is very clearly picked out (variation nine) and in
others, references to it are hilariously obscure (variation eleven). Above all, it is
a very good humoured and, at times, wickedly funny work, posing no emotional
problems.
Symphony of Psalms
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Stravinsky
Stravinsky wrote his Symphony of Psalms in 1930 and the score bears the message
that the Symphony 'composed to the glory of God is dedicated to the Boston
Symphony Orchestra.” It won immediate recognition and recently a reviewer in
a London magazine said that he felt it might in future come to be regarded as
Stravinsky’s greatest work. Other critics feel that, dramatic and individual though
it is, a great deal of the so called development is not really apparent to the listening
ear and the connections between the movements are, therefore, sometimes justifiable
on paper, but in fact do not lead to any aural connection. For instance, the fugal
subject of the second movement is based on the sequence of thirds used as an
ostinato in the first movement but as the thirds themselves are not an unusual basis
for ostinato, the strength of the ‘‘development’ of them to a fugal subject does not
seem to be an advance when one is listening to the work as an experience.
There can be no doubt, however, about the dramatic impact of the work.
Stravinsky's employment of strange forces (flutes, oboes, bassoons—no clarinets—
horns, trumpets, trombones, harp, two pianos, ‘cellos and basses, but no violins and
violas) is masterly and his integrity of expression remarkable. He feels rightly
annoyed with the composers “who have abused these majestinial ‘feelings’.” He
knows that the Psalms are expressions of exaltation, anger, judgment and even curses.
The three movements, the first two of which are quite short, are all positive statements
of Stravinsky's eagerness to challenge the composers referred to in the above
quotation.
The first Psalm is “‘Hear my Prayer, O Lord” and, according to the composer,
was conceived in a state of religious and musical ebullience.
The second and third
movements, Psalm 40 followed by Psalm 150, are more interdependent emotionally
(though not musically), for Psalm 40 is a prayer that a new canticle may be put
into our mouths and the beginning of Psalm 150—Alleluia—is that new canticle.
The secend movement is fugal; the last a number of sections.
Stravinsky is not
averse to using the thoroughly romantic device of the cycle in his last movement
and, after the final slow and poised Hymn of Praise, the reference to the beginning
of the movement seems inevitable.
The affirmative nature of this religious work is undoubtedly one of the reasons
for the impact it has made.
Whether it is divided from other settings of these
Psalms by as great a gap as Stravinsky would have us believe is doubtful.
It is
hard to cast aspersions on other composers’ sincerity merely because of their harmonic idiom. Its sincerity is undoubtedly the thing that will make it live.
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Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, et deprecationem meam : auribus percipe lacrymas
meas.
Ne sileas : quoniam advena ego sum apud te, et peregrinus, sicut omnes
patres mei.
Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer prius quam abeam, et amplius non ero.
11
Expectans expectavi Dominum, et intendit mihi.
Et exaudivit preces meas : et eduxit me de lacu miserize, et de luto feecis.
super petram pedes meos : et direxit gressus meos.
Et immisit in os meum canticum novum, carmen Deo nostro.
timebunt : et sperabunt in Domino.
Et statuit
Videbunt multi, et
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Alleluia.
Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus : laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus.
Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus : laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis
ejus.
Laudate eum in sono tubez : laudate eum in psalterio, et cithara.
Laudate eum in tympano, et choro : laudate eum in chordis, et organo.
Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus : laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis:
Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.
Alleluia.
INTERVAL
Symphony No. 4
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Arnold Bax
According to modern criticism Bax and Stravinsky would seem to be strange bedfellows, yet close study of their works reveals many likenesses. Too often critical
utterance is based on preferences or a superficial summing-up of a composer’s style,
rather than upon judgment of what a composer does with his style. Bax’'s idiom is
linked with the harmonic language of several composers of the 19th and early 20th
centuries, including Ravel and Delius, but only linked, because harmonically he is
in advance of either. The large orchestra he uses is like that of Richard Strauss,
but the intensely personal emotionalism of Richard Strauss is something that Bax
rebelled against. He turned more for inspiration to the strength of Sibelius where
the emotion of sure conviction is not wanting but the maudlin nature of some germanic
romanticism is never reached.
After 1922 Bax turned away from the tone poem and concentrated almost
entirely on symphonic writing, producing seven symphonies between 1922 and 1939.
The fact that a man with a colossal musical technique should turn his entire attention
to the type of work in which form is the most important feature, has escaped most
serious critics and they have labelled him romantic, meandering and formless. The
real problem is that Bax managed to fuse his romanticism and his considerable
formal achievements in such a way that he gives us a double task. Julian Herbage
wrote, “Bax’s form has always been clear and based on a true development of
classical tradition.
His thematic material is on the whole unusually diatonic but
"almost invariably the harmonic texture is richly wrought and highly individual.
As
listeners we have a double task—to appreciate the form and structure while absorbing the colour and the harmony.”
The Fourth Symphony
(1930—31)
poses this same problem, but is the most
approachable and exuberant of the set.
The first movement launches straight into
the material which will be used extensively in the development and in the second
movement.
An angular figure with accents over every note, much closer to Stravinsky than to any of the Romantics, is punched out by various sections of the Orchestra.
This is followed by a snarling chrematic passage on the organ and woodwind which
receives triumphant brass treatment in the last pages of the work.
A heavily dotted
rhythm in a fanfare is next heard and immediately followed by a more lyrical phrase
in 6/8 on the strings.
Straight away these elements are all used in a development
section.
An inversion of the first angular figure now in 3/4 and less accented leads
to what in Bax’s form is the second subject group—two tunes, the first on the oboe
and then the cellos; the second on the flutes and then the cellos, but accompanied
by a bass clarinet version of the first page of the symphony. The first phrase of the
second subject group is going to be used as an important binding element in the
second movement.
Now comes a new recapitulation and development with the
fanfare motive to the fore.
It does not remain a fanfare for long.
Bax turns it
into a lilting 6/8 tune.
He develops the tune until six quavers in the bar begin
to show the angular outline of the very first material in the movement and in this
way works his way back to a statement of the heavily dotted figure.
He then combines one of the themes of the first subject group with the main theme from the second
subject group and together they move towards the Coda.
This is five pages of the
full score and we are back in the world of sharp accents and strong fanfares.
By contrast, the second movement is intensely lyrical and straightforward. One
beautiful long tune is stated in three parts.
The first on the clarinets and bassoons,
the second on violins and cor anglais and the third on solo trumpet.
This gives way
to a passage of great mystery in which scales and a dotted figure reminiscent of the
first movement are used, as if the elements of the first movement were trying to
assert themselves against the mood of the second, but another serene and lyrical
tune on the cellos subdues these elements and works up to a grand climax, after
which parts of it are turned into another tune boldly stated on the strings and very
Scots in flavour. (According to the composer a great deal of this Symphony was
inspired by the scenery of Inverness-shire and the coast line of Western Ireland.)
he movement becomes more agitated; the second theme predominates in a fortissimo climax and out of the noise comes the main subject of the second group from
the first movement. Then there is a shortened recapitulation of all the material
so far used and the movement ends very quietly.
The last movement is a scherzo and
finale combined,
with some of its own
material, but extremely clever use is made of elements from other movements.
It
would be wrong, however, to call this a cyclic symphony, since these elements like
the chromatic phrase at the end of the movement are transformations of what has
gone before, rather than re-statements.
The main materials of this movement are
a bustling tune, first heard on cellos and bassoons and then molto marcato on horns;
an ostinato with a jig-like tune first heard on the trumpet, and then, after a pause
for breath, the six horns play molto cantabile a tune which is an expansion of the
fanfare of the first movement.
After a development of this material, the oboe
introduces a beautiful, if somewhat naive song, which is contemplated by the woodwind and solo violin and then played with great expression by the cellos.
A bridge
passage, brilliantly made out of the first subject of the movement, though it contains
triplets like the accompaniment of the oboe tune, leads to the recapitulation, and
without wasting a bar, Bax cuts this off short before an epilogue.
The epilogue
is an astonishing compression of the material used in this movement.
The oboe
song becomes a triumphant march and then an exalted version of it, now in triplets,
is accompanied by one of the ostinato passages of the movement on the horns.
At
the end of each phrase the trumpets shout the ostinato that was used beneath the
jig. This runs into a vigorous statement of the first subject of this movement shared
by the fiddles, horns and trumpets.
The collision of all these forces is blotted out
by a plangent version on violins and organ of the expanded version of the fanfare
from the first movement.
The brass attach their triumphant chromatic phrase,
and the full orchestra exuberantly hammers out the last optimistic bars.