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Vaughan Williams Five Tudor Portraits [1970-02-21]

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Vaughan Williams: Five Tudor Portraits
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Year:
1970
Date:
February 21st, 1970
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Guildford
Corporation
Concerts
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC :

VERNON HANDLEY

Guildford
Philharmonic

Orchestra
Leader: William Armon

Philharmonic

Choir

Enid Hartle

the

Enid Hartle was born in Sheffield.
Yorks., and studied at the

Guildhall

School

of

Music

where

she held the Mitchell scholarship

and won the College prizes for

Contralto

Brian
Rayner Cook

Baritone

Vernon
Handley
Conductor

Lank, the accompanists, Miss
Mary Rivers and Miss Patricia
Finch, and from Mrs. D, W.

Wren who has given much time to
the Choir.

went on to study with Madame

Vera Rozsa.

PROGRAMME

Miss Hartle has sung several

Symphonie, Opus 21
Webern

leading roles with the Morley
College Opera Group, and her
performances with the
Glyndebourne

Festival

1. Ruhigschreitend (moving

Opera

Company drew warm praise from

quietly).

2. Variations.

from Barcelona where she

This evening’s music has been

fulfilled a contract with the Gran

chosen to show the contrasting

Teatro del Liceo. Concert

styles of three composers. All

engagements have taken Miss

three works were written within

Hartle all over the British Isles,

seven years of one another. It is

and her wide repertoire includes

nowadays thought that any

works in Russian and Hungarian.

modern music must be
essentially noisy, and this criticism
is particularly levelled at serial
and post serial music. Webern’s
little symphony was written in
1928, and after his struggles to
achieve his own use of the twelve
note system represents something
of a calm after a storm. He had
realised that although modern
music’s language was to be
different, it was possible to find

Brian Ravner Cook
Brian Rayner Cook, whose earliest
musical training was as an
organist, read music at Bristol
University. Before turning to solo
singing he did a good deal of
conducting, mainly of opera,

including

performances

in

Bristol

of Gluck’s Iphegenia in Aulis,

which attracted wide coverage in
the national press. He entered
the Royal College of Music as a
Postgraduate Student, studying
with Redvers Llewellyn, and

winning several of the important
prizes for singing. In April last

year he was awarded a Kathleen
Ferrier Memorial Scholarship.

Brian Rayner Cook has appeared
both in oratorio and on the

recital platform. He has been

Symphonie, Opus 21
Webern

the

a seating plan to accommodate

lieder and opera singing. After
graduating from the College she

the critics. She has just returned

Enid
Hartle

Philharmonic Choir from

assistant conductor, Mr. Kenneth

invited by the Incorporated
Society of Musicians to take part
in one of their three Wigmore
Hall recitals this year for

Five Tudor Portraits
Vaughan Williams

“Outstanding Young Artists”.

Symphony No. 1
Walton

The

Director of

Music wishes

acknowledge with thanks the

help he has received in training

to

expression

for

it

in

older

forms,

and the objection often made
that this sort of music leads
nowhere is defeated in the first
movement of this symphony. The
whole work lasts only ten
minutes, and just as in some

classical symphonies, the first
section of the first movement is
repeated in its entirety with no
change of dynamic markings. In

fact, out of this delicate world of

timbres and colours Webern
formally lays out exposition,
devclopment, recapitulation and
coda, and he uses one simple form
in each of these sections, namely
the canon. What makes it subtle
rather than simple music is the
adventurous use of instrumental

colour, and while only clarinet,

by the full orchestra and choir.

bass clarinet, two horns, harp,

The whole movement has great

Bristled with hair.

violins, violas and °cellos are used,

pace, but perhaps its finest

Her nose some deal hookéd,

Like a roast pig’s ear,

the variety of timbres which he

achievement is the scurrying list of

And camously-crookéd,

draws from such a group is

people who cannot wait to get

Never stopping,

astonishing. The

to the ale-feast and are “with all

But ever dropping
;

are fairly easy to recognise, but

their might running” to “Elinor

Her skin loose and slack,

in

the

repeated sections

on the Hill”. By complete contrast

Grained like a sack
;

most rewarding to allow the ear

Variations

it

is

probably

the Intermezzo for baritone solo

With a crooked back.
Jawed like a jetty;

simply to register the different tone

with the choir accompanying is the

qualities as they progress at

gentlest of songs. What a terrible

A man would have pity

different speeds before us.

old rogue John Jaybird of Diss

To see how she is gumméd,

must have been, and how the

Fingered and thumbéd,

Five Tudor Portraits
Vaughan Williams

male voices of the choir contrive

Gently jointed,

1. Ballad. The Tunning of Elinor
Rumming.
2. Intermezzo. My pretty Bess.

3. Burlesca. Epitaph on John
(her

lament for Philip Sparrow).

5. Scherzo. Jolly Rutterkin.

Up to the knuckles
;

scornful English. It is as well to

Like as they were buckles

note that the singers should be

Together made fast.

required

Her youth is far past!

to

produce

good

John Skelton he was a world
famous composer by reason of his

serious choral music and his
symphonies. It is the fault of the
English public that it tends to

pigeonhole its composers as the
purveyors of one type of mood or
style. Although the technical

Williams,

particularly in the orchestration,
is visible on every page of The

humour demands

it.

For

this

boisterous,

rude,

full-blooded music could procecd

from the mind that created the
Tallis Fantasia and the Pastoral

Symphony, and because of this
terrible

pigeonholing

composer’s

religious

the
choral

works

such as Dona Nobis Pacem and

Sancta Civitas are performed
more often than the Five Tudor
Portraits. From the first page the
composer’s ability to grasp
Tudor life is abundantly clear
;
as clear as in other works where
he had absorbed Tudor church
music, and the great brewing of
Elinor Rumming is

rest

a burlesque; not only in regard to

and even

orchestration,

bawled at us

More than forty year;

Jane Scroop’s lament, with the

by women’s voices. As furious
movement gentle, and leaves us in
exactly the right mood for the
Scherzo which finishes the set and
requires full orchestra, full
to

hammer home this riotous finale.

Rumming
Tell you I will,

If that ye will

A-while be still,
Of a comely Jill

That dwelt on a hill:
She is somewhat sage
And well worn in age:

For her visage

And so doth it appear,

For the green bare threadés
Look like sere weedés,

as was the epitaph, so is this

baritone soloist

In her furréd flocket,
And gray russet rocket,

It has been hers, I ween,

contralto soloist accompanied only

the

Like a jollivet,

Her hood of Lincoln green

Once

again, a beatutiful contrast in

choir, and

And yet she will jet

With simper and cocket,

also as to singing and chanting

1. The Tunning of Elinor

works. People find it hard to

that

the

of the time this is, as it is called,

Portraits, it is unique among his
accept

tone

the man whose epitaph it is, but

When in 1935 VaughanWilliams wrote
his Choral Suite from poems of

thumbprint of Vaughan

Greased and anointed

mixture of dog Latin and

only now and then when the

Jaybird of Diss.
4. Romanza. Jane Scroop

a malicious epitaph out of the

Withered like hay,
The wool worn away.

And yet, I dare say
She thinketh herself gay

Upon the holiday
When she doth her array
And girdeth on her geets

Stitched and pranked with pleats;
Her kirtle, Bristol-red,
With clothes upon her head
That weigh a sow of lead,

Writhen in wondrous wise
After the Saracen’s guise,
With a whim-wham
Knit with a trim-tram
Upon her brain-pan
;
Like an Egyptian
Capped about,

It would assuage

When she goeth out.

A man’s courage.

And this comely dame,

Droopy and drowsy,
Scurvy and lowsy,
Her face all bowsy,

Comely crinkled,
Wondrously wrinkled

I understand, her name
Is Elinor Rumming,

At home in her wonning;
And as men say

She dwelt in Surrey

In a certain stead

Ye shall not bear away

Beside Leatherhead.
She is a tonnish gib,
The devil and she be sib.

Mine ale for nought,

But to make up my tale
She breweth nappy ale,

And maketh thereof pot-sale
To travellers, to tinkers,
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale-drinkers,
That will nothing spare
But drink till they stare
And bring themselves bare,
With ‘Now away the mare!

By him that me bought!’
With ‘Hey, dog, hey!
Have these hogs away!’
With ‘Get me a staffé
The swine eat my draffé!

Strike the hogs with a club,
They have drunk up my swillingtub!’

Then thither came drunken Alice,
And she was full of talés,
Of tidings in Walés,
And of Saint James in Galés,

Let us wash our gummés
From the dry crummeés!’
Some brought a wimble,
Some brought a thimble,
Some brought this and that
Some brought I wot ne’er what.
And all this shift they make
For the good ale sake.
‘With Hey! and with Ho!
Sit we down a-row,
And drink till we blow,
And pipe “Tirly Tirlow!” ",
*

%

*

But my fingers itch,
I have written too much
Of this mad mumming

And let us slay care’.
As wise as an hare!

And of the Portingalés,

Come who so will
To Elinor on the hill
With ‘Fill the cup, fill!”
And sit there by still,

There hath been great war
Between Temple Bar
And the Cross in Cheap,

Thus endeth the geste

And there came an heap
Of mill-stones in a rout’.
She speaketh thus in her snout,
Snivelling in her nose
As though she had the pose.

2. Pretty Bess

Early and late.
Thither cometh Kate,

Cisly, and Sare,
With their legs bare,
They run in all haste,

Unbraced and unlaced;
With their heeles dagged,
Their kirtles all jagged,
Their smocks all too-ragged,
With titters and tatters,
Bring dishes and platters,

With all their might running
To Elinor Rumming
To have of her tunning.

She lendeth them on the same,
And thus beginneth the game.

Some wenches come unlaced
Some housewives come unbraced

Some be flybitten,
Some skewed as a Kkitten;

Some have no hair-lace,
Their locks about their face
Such a rude sort

To Elinor resort

From tide to tide.
Abide, abide!

And to you shall be told
How her ale is sold
To Maud and to Mold.
Some have no money

That thither comé
For their ale to pay.

That is a shrewd array!
Elinor sweared, ‘Nay,

With ‘Lo, Gossip, 1 wis,
Thus and thus it is:

‘Lo, here is an old tippet,
An ye will give me a sippet
Of your stale ale,
God send you good sale!’
;
“This ale’, said she, ‘is noppy
Let us suppé and soppy
And not spill a droppy,
For, so may I hoppy,

It cooleth well my croppy’

Then began she to weep
And forthwith fell asleep.

(‘With Hey! and with Ho!
Sit we down a-row,

And drink tille we blow.’)

Of Elinor Rumming!
Of this worthy feast,

My proper Bess,
My pretty Bess,
Turn once again to me!
For sleepest thou, Bess,

Or wakest thou, Bess,

Mine heart it is with thee.
My daisy delectable,
My primrose commendable,
My violet amiable,
My joy inexplicable,
Now turn again to me.
Alas! 1 am disdained,
And as a man half maimed,
My heart is so sore pained!
I pray thee, Bess, unfeigned,
Yet come again to me!

Now in cometh another rabble:
And there began a fabble,
A clattering and babble
They hold the highway,

By love I am constrained
To be with you retained,
It will not be refrained:
I pray you, be reclaimed,
And turn again to me.

Some, loth to be espied,
Start in at the back-side
Over the hedge and pale,
And all for the good ale.
(With Hey! and with Ho!

My proper Bess,
Turn once again to me!
For sleepest thou, Bess,

They care not what men say,

Sit we down a-row,

And drink till we blow.)
Their thirst was so great

They asked never for meat,
But drink, still drink,
And ‘Let the cat wink,

My proper Bess,

Or wakest thou, Bess,
Mine heart it is with thee.

3. Epitaph on John Jayberd of

Diss

On knees to fall
To the football,

Sequitur trigintale
Tale quale rationale,
Licet parum curiale,

Tamen satis est formale,

Joannis Clerc, hominis

Cujusdam multinominis,
Joannes Jayberd qui vocatur,

Clerc cleribus nuncupatur.
Obiit sanctus iste pater
Anno Domini Millesimo
Quingentesimo sexto.
In parochia de Diss
Non erat sibi similis
;
In malitia vir insignis,

Duplex corde et bilinguis
;
Senio confectus,

Omnibus suspectus,
Nemini dilectus,

Sepultus est among the weeds:

God forgive him his misdeeds!
Carmina cum cannis
Cantemus festa Joannis:
Clerk obiit vere,
Jayberd nomenque dedere:
Diss populo natus,
Clerk cleribus estque vocatus.

Nunquam sincere
Solitus sua crimina flere:
Cui male lingua loquax—
—Que mendax que, fuere
Et mores tales
Resident in nemine quales
;

Carpens vitales
Auras, turbare sodales
Et cives socios.

Asinus, mulus velut, et bos.
Quid petis, hic sit quis?

;
John Jayberd, incola de Diss
Cui, dum vixerat is,
Sociantur jurgia, vis, lis.
Fam jacet hic stark dead,

With ‘Fill the black bowl
For Jayberd’s soul’.

Bibite Multum:
Ecce sepultum

Sub pede stultum.
Asinum et mulum
With ‘Hey, ho, rumblelow!’
Rumpopulorum
Pér omnia Secula seculorum!
Free Translation of No. 3

Here follows a trental, more or
less reasonable, hardly fitting for
the Church, but formal enough,

for John the Clerk, a certain man
of many names who was called

died in the year of our Lord 1506.

For that sweet soul’s sake,
And for all sparrows’ souls

Set in our bead-rolls.
When I remember again

How my Philip was slain,
Never half the pain

As then befell to me:

I wept and I wailed,

not his like; a man renowned for

The tears down hailed,

malice, double-hearted and

But nothing it availed

double-tongued, worn out by old

To call Philip again,

age, suspected of all, loved by

Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.
Vengeance I ask and cry,

none, He is buried . . . Sing we

songs in our cups to celebrate

By way of exclamation,

John. The clerk truly is dead and

On all the whole nation

was given the name of Jayberd.

Of cattes wild and tame:

He was born among the people of

God send them sorrow and

Diss and was called clerk by the

shame!

clergy. Never was he wont truly to

That cat specially

bewail his sins. His evil tongue

That slew so cruelly

was loquacious and lying. Such

My little pretty sparrow

morals as his were never before in

That I brought up at Carrow!

anyone. When he breathed the

O cat of churlish kind,

vital air he disturbed his

The fiend was in thy mind

companions and his fellow

So traitorously my bird to kill

citizens as if he were an ass, a

That never owed thee evil will!

mule, or a bull. Do you ask who

It had a velvet cap,

this is!

And would sit upon my lap,

John Jayberd, inhabitant

of Diss with whom while he lived

And seek after small wormes,

were associated quarrels,

And sometime whitebread-

Pray, brethren . . .

At this trental

Among the Nuns Black.

In the parish of Diss there was

Fratres, orate

And pray shall,

For the soul of Philip Sparrow,
That was, late, slain at Carrow,

Was between you twain,

Now here he lies . . .

I pray you all,

Fa, re, mi, mi,
Wherefore and why, why?

Pyramus and Thisbe,

In faith, deacon thou crew!

Did never man good:

Dilexi!
Dame Margery?

by the clergy. This holy father

violence and strife.

By the holy rood,

Placebo!
Who is there, who?

John Jayberd. He was called clerk

Never a tooth in his head.
Adieu Jayberd, adieu,

For this knavate,

4. Jane Scroop. Her lament for
Philip Sparrow

Drink your fill. See he is buried
under your feet, a fool, an ass
and a mule . . .
For ever and ever.

crumbes ;
And many times and oft,

Between by breastes soft
It would lie and rest;
It was proper and prest!

Sometime he would gasp
When he saw a wasp
;

A fly, or a gnat,
He would fly at that;
And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant!

Lord how he would pry

The swan of Maender,

After a butterfly!

The goose and the gander,

Lord, how he would hop

The duck and the drake,

Deus, cui proprium est misereri et
parcere,

On Philip’s soul have pity!

After the grasshop!

Shall watch at this wake
;

For he was a pretty cock,

And when I said, ‘Phip, Phip!”

The owl that is so foul,

And came of a gentle stock,

Then he would leap and skip,
And take me by the lip.

Must help us to howl;

And wrapt in a maiden’s smock,

The heron so gaunt,

And cherished full daintily,

it will me slo

And the cormorant,

Till cruel fate made him to die;

That Philip is gone me fro!

With the pheasant,

Alas, for doleful destiny!

Alas!

For Philip Sparrow’s soul,
Set in our bead-roll,

Let us now whisper

A Pater noster,

And the gaggling gant,

Farewell, Philip adieu!

The dainty curlew,

Our Lord, thy soul rescue!

With the turtle most true.

Farewell, without restore,

The peacock so proud,

Farewell for evermore!

Because his voice is loud,

Lauda, anima mea, Dominum!

And hath a glorious tail,

To weep with me, look that ye

He shall sing the Grail.

come,

All manner of birdés in your
kind
;

See none be left behind.
To mourning look that ye fall
With dolorous songs funeral,
Some to sing and some to say,

Some to weep, and some to pray,
Every bird in his lay.
The goldfinch, the wagtail
;
The jangling jay to rail,
The fleckéd pie to chatter
Of this dolorous matter;

The bird of Araby

That potentially
May never die.

A phoenix it is
This hearse that must bless
With aromatic gums
That cost great sums,

The way of thurification

To make a fumigation,

Sweet reflare,
And redolent of air,

This corse for to ’cense

With great reverence,

And Robin Redbreast,

As patriarch or pope

He shall be the priest
The requiem mass to sing,

Whiles he ‘censeth the hearse,

Softly warbling,
With help of the reed sparrow,
And the chattering swallow,
This hearse for to hallow
;
The lark with his long toe
;
The spinke, and the martinet also
;
The fieldfare, the snite
The crow and the kite
The raven called Rolfe,

His plain song to sol-fa;
The partridge, the quail
;
The plover with us to walil
;

The lusty chanting nightingale
;
The popinjay to tell her tale,
That toteth oft in a glass,

Shall read the Gospel at mass;
The mavis with her whistle

Shall read there the Epistle.
Our chanters shall be the cuckoo,

The culver, the stockdoo,

With ‘peewit’ the lapwing,
The Versicles shall sing.

In a black cope.
He shall sing the verse,

Libera me, Domine!

In do, la sol, re,

Softly Be-mol
For my sparrow’s soul.

And now the dark cloudy night

Chaseth away Phoebus bright,
Taking his course towards the
west,

God send my sparrow’s soul good
rest!

Requiem aeternam dona eis,

Domine!
I pray God, Philip to heaven may

fly!

5. Jolly Rutterkin
Hoyda, Jolly Rutterkin, hoyda!

Like a rutter hoyda.
Rutterkin is come unto our town
In a cloak without coat or gown,

Save a

ragged

hood

Like a rutter hoyda.
Rutterkin can speak no English,

His tongue runneth all on

buttered fish,
Besmeared

with

luck,
A stoup of beer up at a pluck,

Till his brain be as wise as a duck,
Like a rutter hoyda.
What now, let see,
Who looketh on me

Well round about,
How gay and how stout
That I can wear

Courtly my gear.

My hair brusheth

So pleasantly,
My robe rusheth
So ruttingly,

Meseem I fly,
I am so light

Properly dressed,

some!

Oremus,

his

Like a rutter hoyda.

To Heaven he shall, from Heaven

Of all good prayers God send him

about

Rutterkin shall bring you all good

To dance delight.

Dominus vobiscum!

grease

dish,

Domine, exaudi orationem meam!
he came!

to cover his

crown,

All point devise,
My person pressed
Beyond all size

Of the new guise,
To rush it out
In every rout.

Beyond measure

movements, and a reserving of

Walton achieves this without ever

My sleeve is wide,

his percussion strength until the

descending

All of pleasure

last movement, he manages to

The material from the Allegro and

My hose strait tied,

create the impression of having

the slow movement opens the

My buskin wide

a very much larger orchestra at

finale and then gives way to a

Rich to behold,

his disposal.

Glittering in gold.

furious fugue. After such a

straightforward as to overall form,

but the first subject theme asserts
itself in all sections of the
movement, and,

Interval
During

the

Interval,

refreshments

Is., will be served in the Surrey
Room by members of the
Concertgoers’ Society.

being a

tune

reminiscent of Sibelius, it is
of great organic changes,

capable

and sometimes we may be

listening to what seems like new
material when it is a remote

development of the original

Symphony No. 1 in B flat minor
Walton

snippet. The second movement

does not resolve the tremendous
tension of the first. In fact, the

Allegro assai.

con malizia of the title is

Presto con malizia.

admirably suited to extending

Andante,

emotional tension in the music

Maestoso—Rioso

ed

ardentamente—Vivacissimo—
Maestoso.
At the turn of the century, people

were quite overcome if an
Englishman produced a symphony,

but nowadays, although those of

Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton
and Bax are not given enougn

hearings, owing to the
championship of one or two
foreign conductors, Walton’s First

Symphony is known all over
Europe and America. Its impact is

and the audience. The emotion of
malice is offered by displaced

accents, jagged rhythms and
dissonant harmonies hammered
out furiously off the beat as well
as on. It is music of tremendous
excitement with sudden
fortissimos and sudden pianissimos,

with an extraordinary ccda
working up from piano to
fortissimo and then stopping
completely for a long silence

before the final explosion.
Now the third movement slowly

individual and immediate, and

unwinds itself before us, but

yet like much of Walton’s music,
it took him some years to

where we might expect a

complete. He was writing it

the melodies, though beautiful,

romantic

sentimentality.

demanding work, the composer

The first movement is

Rutterkin is come, etc.

into

contrast

to

the

presto,

during the years 1932-1935, and in

are more melancholy than

fact allowed the first three

consoling, and at times a very

movements to be performed while

forceful

he was still struggling with the

without resolving the moods so

romanticism

is

expressed

problem of finishing the work.

far experienced in

Although Walton employs remote

This resolution is achieved in the

harmonies, a key relationship

last movement. Some critics

which circles tonalities and an

objected to the more ceremonial

the symphony.

organic approach to theme

side of Walton as expressed in his

building allied to a disintegration

Coronation Marches being

of rhythmic pattern, yet the

brought to the fore here, but

orchestration he employs is

resolution was definitely needed in

perfectly orthodox. By a careful

this work, and in this most

division of string parts in all four

orderly of the four movements

was at pains not to finish in a
merely noble or satisfied spirit.
The end is optimistic, but only in

the most masculine manner; the
final maestoso being one of the
composer’s most impassioned
outbursts.