GUILDFORD
PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA
Leader:
WILLIAM ARMON
PROTEUS CHOIR
Guildford Corporation Concerts
DirecTOR OF Music:
VERNON HANDLEY
CIVIC HALL
SATURDAY,
17th DECEMBER,
1966, at 7.45 p.m.
PIANOFORTE
DAVID WILDE
CONDUCTOR
VERNON HANDLEY
~
PROGRAMME
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SIXPENCE
DAVID WILDE
David Wilde was born in Stretford, Lancashire, in 1935.
When he was ten
years old, he studied with the distinguished composer-pianist, Franz Reizenstein,
at the recommendation of Solomon.
From 1948 to 1953 he attended the
Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied piano with Iso Elinson
and composition with Richard Hall.
His other teachers have included Gordon
Green and Paul Badura-Skoda.
His professional career began in 1956 as an orchestral pianist and accompanist in Worthing, and from 1959 to 1962 he was engaged by the BBC in
Scotland as full-time staff accompanist and orchestral pianist.
He has won
numerous prizes, including shared first prize at the Liszt—Bartok International
Piano Competition in Budapest, 1961.
His appearances with most of Britain’s
leading orchestras have been greeted with critical acclaim, and his appearances
abroad have been spectacularly successful.
He appeared in the 1962 season
of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts and, later in the same year, at the Royal
Concert in the Royal Festival Hall.
PROTEUS CHOIR
The Proteus Choir was formed in 1963 to provide a chorus where young people
could gain experience in choral training.
Rehearsal programmes are specially
devised so that members who are at University are able to sing in the choir’s
concerts because they receive an ample number of rehearsals before the University terms begin, and at the end of those terms.
The name ‘“‘Proteus’’,
chosen by the chorus itself, refers to the Sea God who was able to change
himself into many forms, and this was felt to be appropriate to the constantly
changing membership, and the tremendous variety of works that the choir
covers. As well as singing large choral works with the Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra, it gives a number of unaccompanied concerts, including carols and
part-songs, as well as religious motets and in 1964 visited Dusseldorf, Duisburg,
Cologne and Bonn and made a record of English music for Cologne Radio.
In 1965 a section of the choir made a recording of the complete ‘““Midsummer
Night’s Dream” music of Mendelssohn with the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra for the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production, and in February last, twenty-five
members of the choir were invited to sing on the BBC Television programme
*‘Seeing and Believing”.
Mr. Handley wishes to record his thanks to Miss Mary Rivers, Miss Maureen
H}?l! and Mr. Kenneth Lank for the help that they have given in training the
choir.
PROGRAMME
Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
.
Vaughan Williams
Thomas Tallis (about 1505—1585) was a “‘Gentleman of the Royal Chapel”
under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary | and Elizabeth .
Vaughan Williams’s
Fantasia is based on material from the third of eight tunes that Tallis wrote
in 1567 for the metrical psalter of Mathew Parker, the then Archbishop of
Canterbury.
‘Fantasia’® has come to mean something quite different from the
form that was popular in the time of Tallis, and which was undoubtedly in
Vaughan Williams’s mind when he wrote this work, and although the word
carried the idea of fancy, it did not necessarily mean something uncontrolled in form. Vaughan Williams’s work does not contain a single bar that is not
directly related to the material he chose.
The work is laid out for a solo
string quartet and two string orchestras, the second much smaller than the
first (it becomes a sort of echo) and directed to be placed some distance from
the orchestra. The whole group is subject to a great deal of divisi writing,
and the two orchestras are variously subdivided antiphonally as the work pro-
ceeds. The work begins with a setting of the scene garmonic.ally on long held
quiet chords. Then the theme is played pizzicato; the first orchestra takes
up the tune, and the Fantasia begins to unfold.
Another phrase of the tune
receives treatment on the solo quartet, and the different phrases are brought
together in a huge climax, which shows Vaughan Williams’s understanding of
the string medium.
Indeed, it is as much because of the writing for strings
in this work, as for the worth of the material itself, that the piece has been
such a success, for it is another example of an English composer writing
magnificently for string orchestra, and takes its place beside the Elgar ‘Introduction and Allegro’ as one of the most remarkable string works in the litera-
ture.
That these two works must, in some sense, have inspired Bliss's ““Music
for Strings”’ and Tippett's ‘‘Concerto for Double String Orchestra’ is certain.
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
.
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Rachmaninov
Rachmaninov left Russia for ever in 1917.
It is not generally realised that
he composed the majority of his works before that date.
During the twenty-six
years that he spent in exile, he composed only now and then, and it was not
until 1934 that he composed the Paganini Rhapsody which, with the Second
Piano Concerto, shares a popularity not attained by any of his other
compositions.
The work is not really a Rhapsody, but a straightforward set of variations.
The theme chosen is that which has attracted many composers and has been
used for a set of variations by Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and in this century
by Blacher, the German composer, whose set for orchestra is one of the most
engaging and entertaining of modern works.
In the seventh and tenth of
the variations Rachmaninov opposes to the Paganini tune the tune of “‘Dies
Irae” which, at least in outline, has a kinship to the main tune.
The work
starts with a nine bar introduction and then the orchestra sketches the basic
harmony of the theme and this is, in fact, the first variation. Then we hear
the theme itself, which is announced by the violins with the piano playing
the outline which had previously been given to the orchestra. The first group
of variations (2 to 5) carries on the opening allegro, but No. 6, with its phrases
on the cor anglais, introduces a very nostalgic and lyrical tone. The next four
variations either use or are overshadowed by the ‘‘Dies Irae” tune.
From
No. 12 to No. 15 there is a new key, D minor, while 16, 17 and 18 are in D flat
major. The last of these is the glorious tune to which the work owes most
of its popularity. Audiences are often disturbed by the fact that when the
orchestra joins the soloist in this section there seems in every other bar to be
a disagreement between soloist and conductor, but, in fact, to give a feeling
of ecstatic freedom in the tune, Rachmaninov has written four notes for the
orchestra on the last beat of every other bar when there are only three notes,
a triplet, for the soloist.
After this, the Rhapsody hurries in each variation towards its conclusion.
There are several brief cadenzas and then with the ‘Dies Irae” appearing
threateningly in the brass, Rachmaninov stops the noise and ends the work with
a brief and very quiet reference to the Paganini tune.
INTERVAL
El Corpus-¢n Sevlils
.
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o
g
coanmiibeniz
Albeniz wrote a set of pieces for piano called “Iberia”. His colleague,
Fernandez Arbos, transcribed them for orchestra, and of the five movements
two, “‘Triana” and "Féte Dieu a Seville’”” have become popular orchestral
pieces. The sub-title of the second of these two, “El Corpus en Sevilla”, is
the title usually used when this single movement is played.
It is a tone
painting of the Corpus Christi Procession and Festival. The Procession, strewn
with flowers, winds its way along the streets and halts from time to time while
spontaneous songs are improvised by the worshippers. The tone picture is
notable for the fascinating interplay of two themes: a march, and one of the
spontaneous songs. Albeniz concludes the piece with a picture of the silent
town after the Procession has gone into the distance, and it is Arbos’
finest
achievement that in the orchestration of an otherwise gay piece, he manages
to capture the simplicity and stillness of the Spanish town when all the
noise
of the Festival has cleared away.
The huge orchestra is only allowed one or
two noisy climaxes, and otherwise the large percussion section and
woodwind
band are used for timbre rather than weight, and the strings are directed to
play a number of extraordinary effects.
An interesting note says that the
small bells used in the piece need not be of any particular pitch.
Daphnis and Chloé
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s
ove
o
el
(Symphonic Fragments - Second Series)
Daybreak
Pantomime
General Dance
Chlog, having been captured by pirates is rescued by the nymphs and satyrs
of the sacred wood. When the will-o’-the-wisps and fantastic apparitions appear
and the pirates flee terrified, Chloé remains motionless, a halo of light about
her head. Dawn begins to break through the darkness, and it is in the depicting of this scene that the second concert suite begins.
Streams, swelled by
dew. trickle along their course, the occasional bird begins its dawn chorus,
and, in the distance, shepherds are beginning to move their flocks. As day
breaks, Daphnis wakes up and immediately looks for Chlog, searching here
and there through the wood. When she at last appears, she is surrounded by
shepherdesses. The two lovers fall into each other’s arms: an old shepherd
explains that Pan had answered Daphnis’s prayer to save Chloé because he
remembered the nymph, Syrinx, whom he once loved. The two lovers mime
the story of the God and the Nymph to the accompaniment of a solo flute.
Their mime ends in an embrace, and then the shepherds and shepherdesses
surround them, beginning the bacchanalia, which ends the ballet in a tumultuous celebration of love.
Although the virtuoso orchestral writing has been the great superficial
attraction of this work, its lasting value is undoubtedly that the whole ballet
is a work of symphonic importance. Even when the second suite is performed
alone, the interplay of the thematic material and the balance of the three
movements, which are played without a break, are really the elements which
carry
an audience along. In many modern performances too much emphasis
is pf;ced on sheer virtuosity of orchestral execution, thus obscuring Ravel's
beautifully ordered plan.
SUNDAY, 22nd JANUARY, 1967, at 3 p.m.
OVERTURE—'Susanna’s Secret’
RITORNA VINCITOR from ‘Aida’
SALCE (The Willow Song) from ‘Otello’
SUITE L’ARLESIENNE
"CELILO CONCERTO in E minor
ROMEO AND JULIET—Fantasy Overture
JOSEPHINE BARSTOW
Wolf-Ferrari
Verdi
Verdi
Bizet
Vivaldi
Tchaikovsky
Soprano
ELIZABETH ANGEL
"Cello
GUILDFORD PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA
Conductor:
VERNON HANDLEY