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Guildford
Philharmonic
Orchestra
Civic Hall—Guildford
SATURDAY 5th MAY at 7.45 p.m.
Jane Manning
Jane Manning (who is appearing at short
notice owing to the indisposition of Ilse
Wolf) was born in Norwich, and studied at
the Royal Acadzamy of Music with Eric
Green, and in Switzerland with Frederick
Husler. Her repertoire is unusually wideranging, combining the standard oratorio
and recital work with her special interest,
Guildford
contzmporary music. She has appeared
Philharmonic
also a frequent broadcaster, and has
Orchestra
Leader: HUGH BEAN
many times in the Royal Festival Hall,
Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall. She is
appeared on television. Jane Manning
performed with the Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra, Philharmonic Choir and Vernon
Handley in 1962 when she was the soprano
soloist in Elgar’s The Apostles.
Margaret Cable
Philharmonic Choir
Jane Manning
Soprano
Margaret Cable
Contralto
Margaret Cable was born and educated in
Cambridge. She began her musical studies
learning the piano, and later the violin. But,
at the age of eighteen, she won a Scholarship
and Exhibition for singing to the Royal
College of Music where she studied with
Cuthbert Smith. She has since been
appointed a Professor of Singing at the
College. She has appeared in a wide range
of concert and recital work both in London
and throughout the provinces, in addition
to frequent broadcasts, recordings and
television appearances.
Kenneth Woollam
Kenneth Woollam
Tenor
Thomas Allen
Baritone
Vernon Handley
Conductor
This concert is promoted by Guildford
Corporation with financial assistance from
the Arts Council of Great Britain.
Kenneth Woollam was born in Chester and
was a chorister in the Cathedral choir. In
1961 he won a County Major Award and
entered the Royal College of Music where
he was a prominent soloist and prize
winner. Kenneth Woollam’s appearance and
personality on stage has brought him
considerable success in concerts, oratorio
and opera. As well as appearances in this
country, he has given concerts in Western
Germany and Brussels, and has broadcast
on Belgian Radio. He made his debut with
Sadler’s Wells Opera last year.
Thomas Allen
Thomas Allen was born in Seaham, Co.
Durham. He studied singing at the Royal
College of Music under Hervey Alan, and
the organ under Harold Darke. In 1968 he
was runner-up in the Federation of Music
Socizties annual competition for young
musicians, and was awarded a Gulbenkian
Foundation Scholarship. Thomas Allen
made his debut at the Royal Opera House,
more thoughtful international conductors to
Covent Garden in 1971, and is at present
under contract to the Welsh National Opera
estimation.
as principal baritone. He has an extensive
concert repertoire, and despite his operatic
commitments, he has made frequent
broadcasts of Lieder and English Songs.
Philharmonic Choir
The Philharmonic Choir is the larger of the
two choirs under the conductorship of the
Musical Director, who acknowledges with
recording of the work, it only awaits the
gain its rightful place in the public’s
The other great misunderstanding comes
about because of the nature of the poetry
of Nietzsche. ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’
came out in 1883. It was a culmination of
the attitude of free-thinking amongst
artists which had run riot in the Romantic
period ; but it was the expression of a
philosopher as well as a poet: an attempt
thanks the help he has received in training
to find the meaning and purpose of human
the choir from Mr. Kenneth Lank, and
existence, and as such was a positive attempt
accompanists Miss Mary Rivers, Miss
Patricia Finch and Miss Prudence Edden,
and from Mrs. D. W. Wren who has given
time to a seating plan to accommodate the
Choir.
Guildford Corporation would like to
express its gratitude to the Red Cross
organisation for its services at these concerts
throughout the season, and also to the
Concertgoers’ Society.
PROGRAMME
A MASS OF LIFE
Delius 1862—1934
‘A Mass of Life’ was Delius’s biggest work,
and yet its history and message are largely
misunderstood by to-day’s critics and public.
It belongs to the period 1898-1905, that is
to say, it comes from the years before he
wrote most of the works which gained him
his reputation. Since those years, however,
produced ‘Appalachia’, and the opera, ‘A
Village Romeo and Juliet’, one must
consider them his period of maturity.
Contrary to what we are led to believe
nowadays, it was not Sir Thomas Beecham’s
first performance in 1909, nor subsequent
and not, as many thoughtless commentators
have averred, either anti-Christian or a
licence for loose behaviour. Indeed, it was
the positiveness of the philosophical ideas
and the poetry which appealed to Delius,
and he succeeds in matching the originality
of the prose poem with original music in a
way which neither Mahler nor Richard
Strauss succeeded in doing, for both fell
back on musical devices already well used
and associated with other attitudes to life,
for instance, the Viennese Waltz in Strauss’s
tone poem Zarathustra. Much criticism has
been made of the English translation which
will be sung to-day, the most popular being
that the archaic idiom sounds peculiar. It is
forgotten that Nietzsche’s German itself
used old fashioned forms and that his own
study of the story is not nineteenth century
Germany, but ancient Persian story.
‘A Mass of Life’ is a hymn of praise to
life, and an effort to discover in full
blooded living the meaning or purpose of
existence. It is conceived in two parts, and
the audience should remember that although
the interval is placed where it is, Part 2, or
the second of the two tremendous arches
which are the two parts, has already begun.
The second part is so much more intense
than the first, at least spiritually, that it is
ones by that conductor, that gained for the
work whatever recognition it had. It is not
probably a good thing to have a small rest
generally known, for instance, that it had
great success on the continent: Mahler knew
it and studied it. It was given in Vienna,
Part 2, before making the attempt on the
philosophical course which leads to the final
ensemble. Each part begins with the full
Prague and Wiesbaden in 1922. Bartok and
Kodaly admired the work, and the former
choral and orchestral forces urging man
towards strength of spirit. The only
wrote to Delius speaking of his fascination.
It was performed in Berlin in 1927. There
were infrequent performances by Sir
Thomas Beecham and Sir Malcolm Sargent,
but now, with Sir Charles Groves’ admirable
difficulty is that in the first part we are
after the tremendous opening chorus of
hurled headlong into the chorus, while at
the beginning of the second part there is a
magical orchestral prelude before the
evocation ‘Arise, now arise’. Then, in each
part there is a movement for the baritone
and orchestra and a central ‘dance of life’.
And although the soloists introduce each of
these dances in the two parts, the dances
themselves contain a great deal of music
which is wordless, and these were the
choruses which so impressed Bartok and
Kodaly. Next, once again in both parts, the
chorus and Zarathustra bring the message
of woe: in the first part because natural
Night has come, and in the second part
because Death is approaching. The first
part ends with a Song of Night, and the
second with the great chorus ‘Come now,
let us wander’, where Zarathustra
approaches the mystery of Death, but in
his strength seems to gather all the musical
forces together in a great song which
combines acceptance, joy and faith.
3. SOLI AND CHORUS
Tenor: In thine eyes I gazed of late, O
wondrous Life. Gold saw I in thy night-eyes
gleaming. My heart stood still, seized with
voluptuous longing.
Soprano: Then a golden bark saw I glitter
on night’s deep silent waters, saw it sinking,
fast drinking, again then blinking, that golden
cradling bark.,
Contralto: At my feet that longed for the
dance one look didst thou cast, a smiling,
questioning, melting, quivering look.
Tenor: Twice only shookest thou soft thy
castanets with tiny hands, when my foot began
tripping in dance impassioned.
Contralto: High my heels then rose from
the ground, and my listening toes would fain
understand thee.
PART 1
1. CHORUS
Thou Will unbending! Dispeller thou of care!
Thou mine essential in life! Preserve me from
all petty earthly conquests!
My soul’s predestination which I call my
destiny, thou in me, over me, preserve me,
reserve me for one great worthy final destiny.
Then prepared and ripe I'll stand, when the
glorious mid-day looms, prepared and ripe,
like ore in the furnace: prepared to mine
ego, to my will, however deeply concealed, a
bow with passion craving its shaft, towards its
goal soaring starwards; a star prepared and
ripe in all its mid-day splendour, glowing,
transpierced, raptured ’mid the blaze of the
sun’s bright arrows; yea, a sun itself e’en, and
a stern inflexible sun-will swaying, for
destruction prepared in conquest.
O Will, dispeller thou of care, thou mine
essential in life! Do thou reserve me for one
great final conquest.
Thou Will unbending! Dispeller thou of care,
thou mine essential in life! Preserve me from
ambition’s petty conquests! My soul’s
predestination, which I call my destiny, thou
in me, over me, preserve and reserve me for
one great worthy final destiny!
2. BARITONE SOLO
Now lift up your hearts, all, lift them,
brothers, high! higher! Nor forget the light
fantastic toe!
Lo! this crown of the Laughing One, yea this
crown wreathed of roses, dear belovéd
brothers, into your midst this crown I cast!
All laughter dubbed I holy; ye higher-born
men, all, learn ye laughter.
And lift your feet and legs all
ye merry dancers, or, better still, stand ye
right on your heads!
Lo! this crown of the Laughing One, this fair
wreathlet of roses myself upon my own head
as a crown I set, I myself pronounced holy
my own laughter. For none other found I
strong enough to do the same.
Be like unto the wind, when from mountains’
high summit he darts; he’ll dance to the tune
himself he whistles. The billows tremble and
tumble when they feel his foot stamping.
Tenor: Towards thee I bounded; alas! from
my bound thou didst swiftly recoil, and in my
face was wafted thy fluttering, wild-flowing
hair, tongue-like.
Soprano: From thee I sprang back as if
lashed by serpents.
Tenor: Then stoodst thou, half-turned towards
me; thine eye was filled with longing.
Soprano and Contralto: With crooked glances
showst thou me crooked pathways; on crooked
pathways my foot learns cunning.
Soprano, Contralto and Tenor: 1 fear thee
near me, I love thee far off. Thy flight allures
me, thy seeking stays me. I suffer, yet all
would I suffer for thee right gladly. Thou,
whose coldness kindles, whose hate beguiles,
whose flight bindeth, whose scoff charms.
Double Chorus with Soprano, Contralto, and
Tenor Soli: Now for a dance over hill and
dale! I am the huntsman, wilt thou my hound
or my chamois be? Now close to me quickly,
thou pitiless Columbine! Now up and away!
Here are caverns and undergrowth: we are
sure to lose our pathway. Stay! stand still!
what way lurest thou me now? I’ll dance to
thy step, I'll follow thee e’en on the faintest
track. Where art thou? Give me thy hand, or
even one small finger give.
Thou show’st me thy snow-white teeth and
snarlest sweetly, thy wicked eyes dart flashes
at me from beneath thy wild tresses. Seest thou
not owls and flittermice fluttering? Thou
owlet, thou flittermouse, dost thou dare mock
me? Give me thy hand.
Baritone Solo: O ye my new companions, ye
wonderful, higher-born mortals, how well you
please me to-day, since ye waxed light-hearted!
Ye have truly all now burst into bloom;
methinks for such flowers as you are, new
revels are required.
Contralto: O Zarathustra! Far beyond good
and evil we discover our island, and our ever
verdant meadow, we two alone, Reason ’tis
that we twain should love each other!
O Zarathustra, thou art not true enough to
me. There is an ancient bell tolling. When,
waking from slumber at midnight thou hearest
it tolling, recall then my words. O Zarathustra,
I know that soon thou wilt have forsaken me.
Baritone:
Yea, but thou dost know it, too.
Bass Chorus: O man, mark well!
What tolls the solemn midnight
bell?
I lay asleep,
Till haunting dreams broke
slumber’s spell.
The world is deep,
And deeper far than day can tell.
Deep is her woe.
Joy deeper still than grief of
heart.
Woe says:
Be gone!
But Joy would have Eternity.
Ne’er ending, everlasting day.
Soprano: And they gazed at each other and
gazed upon the verdant meadow over which
the cool shades of eventide swept; and they
sighed and wept together.
4. BARITONE SOLO AND CHORUS
Baritone: Woe is me! Whither is time fled?
Sank I not ’neath deep, deep fountains?
Chorus: The world sleeps. Ah, the hound
howls, the moon shines.
Baritone: Rather would I die here than tell
my midnight-heart’s solemn thought. Now
dead am I, and all is o’er. Spider, what
weavest thou round me? Cravest thou blood?
Ah, the dew falls, the hour is nigh, the hour
when I shall shiver and freeze, the hour that
asks and asks: ‘“Who hath heart to do the
deed? Who shall be Earth’s Master? Who
shall order: ‘Thus flow, ye rivers, ye streams,
and mighty waters! ’.”” The hour draws nigh.
O man, thou higher-born man, mark well!
This my speech is meant for subtle senses.
Attend and hearken: What saith the solemn
midnight hour?
5. CHORUS AND BARITONE SOLO
Chorus: Night reigneth. Now louder murmur
the leaping crystalline fountains: and is not
my soul too like a leaping fountain?
Baritone: Night reigneth. Now awaken all the
songs of fond lovers; and my own soul too is
the song of a lover. The unrequited, ne’er to
be requited dwells in me, that for utterance
clamours, and a deep longing for love rages
in me, that speaks itself nought but love’s
sweetest language. Light am I; oh, would that
I were Night! But this is my solitude, that I
am girdled round with Light.
Chorus: O solitude of all Givers!
deep of all Light-shedders!
O silence
Baritone: Woe that I Light must be! Now
bursts from me like a fountain my longing.
PART I1
1. ORCHESTRAL INTRODUCTION:
ON THE MOUNTAINS
and
CHORUS WITH SOPRANO, CONTRALTO
AND TENOR SOLI
Chorus: Arise, now arise, thou glorious
Noon-tide! The sea storms. Away away, ye
ancient ocean-farers! Steer our ship to the
regions where our dear children’s country lies.
That way fare! Wilder than storm-rack’d
sea rages our heart-felt longing. Wax ye hard!
Chorus with Soprano, Contralto and Tenor
Soli: ’Tis gone, the lingering sorrow of my
springtide. Summer am I become, yea
summer’s noon-tide, on mountains’ high
summits, by clear, cool waters, ’mid rapturous
stillness. O come, my companions, and the
silence shall enrapture our souls. For this is
now our home. Snow-clad mountain summits.
Dwellers with eagles, we, dwellers ‘mid the
snows, the sun our neighbour. Like a sudden
tempest comes my bliss, and brings me
freedom.
Chorus:
Arise, now arise, etc.
INTERVAL
During the interval, refreshments will be
served in the Surrey Room by members
of the Concertgoers’ Society.
2. BARITONE SOLO
Baritone: Lyre, my solace, come, enchant
me! I love thy ululating, quivering, drunken
sound! From far away, from ages past thy
voice comes to me, from afar, from the
founts of Love. Thou ancient toller, thou
dulcet warbler, my sweetest lyre, every pang
tore at thy heart, pangs of fathers’ ancestors’
pangs. Lo, thy speech waxed ripe, like mellow
autumn and afternoon, like this hermit’s
heart of mine I hear thee say: “The world
herself waxed ripe, the grape-vine purples and
fain would die of joy.” Ye higher-born
mortals, scent ye it not? An odour, secret and
sweet doth use, an odour, breath of Eternity,
of roses mingled with golden-brown wine’s
sweet breath of bliss and rapture, of drunken
Midnight’s joy in dying, that singeth: “The
Wfil’ld is deep, and deeper far than day can
feliz?
3. FEMALE CHORUS AND BARITONE
SOLO
Baritone: Stop not dancing, I pray ye,
beautiful maidens! I came not hither to spoil
your sport with angry looks. No woman-
hater I, but God’s counsel before the Devil,
who is the spirit of heaviness. Then how
should I be e’er averse to the Divine art of
dancing, or to maidens’ feet with graceful
ankles? True, I am a forest and a night dark
with foliage, but he that is not afraid of my
shades will find rosy bowers beneath my
cypresses. And e’en the tiny god he there may
find whom will all the maidens love the most,
lying still, with his eyes closed in slumber.
Truly, in broad daylight fell he asleep, the
lazy rogue! Sought he to catch too many
butterflies? Chide me not, ye beauteous
light-footed maidens, if I chastise our little
god of love! He is sure to cry and clamour,
but his weeping will excite your laughter; and
with tears in his eyes, he shall come and beg
a dance of you, and I myself will sing a song
to which he’ll caper—a dancing mocking
song of the spirit of heaviness, of his
Highness the Devil who, so they tell me, is
the “Lord of Creation”.
Baritone: The sun has long gone down in all
his glory: the meadow is damp and from the
woodlands cometh coolness. An unknown
power surrounds me and gazes thoughtfully.
What! thou liv’st still, Zarathustra? And why?
For what? By what? Thine aim? Where?
How? Is it not folly still to be living? O my
companions, the evening filleth my soul with
doubts, forgive me my sadness. Evening it was,
forgive me that evening has fallen upon me.
4. CHORUS AND SOLI
Chorus: Glowing Mid-day sleeps on the
meadows. Thou liest in the heather. Hush!
Tenor: Like a delicate breeze that none can
see, as o’er ocean becalmed it dances lightly,
feather-like: danceth sleep on me. This is the
coveted hour of solemn silence when no
shepherd sounds his reed.
Chorus: O solitude of purpling heather!
O bliss!
Baritone: What befell me? Hark, is it Time
that hath fled? Am I not falling? Fell I not,
hark! in the fountain of Eternity? Oh, now
break, heart, that has known such rapture!
Wouldst thou now carol, O my fond spirit?
Contralto: Stay thy song—hush! whisper not
e’en a word. The world is grown perfect.
I’m a belfry spirit whom no one understands,
but who yet was made to talk to deaf ears,
ye higher-born mortals; who understand me
not.
Chorus: Thou art gone, O time of youth!
O Noon-tide! O Afternoon! Then came
Evening and Midnight. Oh, how she sighs,
how she laughs, how she gasps and groans,
doth Midnight. Hark what sober sense she
speaks, this delirious poetess; she must have
out-drunk her drunkenness. She waxed
overwakeful? Her grief she swallows down
in dreams—and if her grief be deep, then
even more her joy. Joy is deeper still than
grief of heart!
6. BARITONE SOLO, CHORUS AND
SOLO QUARTET
Baritone: Come, now, let us wander! The
hour is come now! Let us walk in Night’s
darkness! Ye higher-born mortals, the
midnight hour is nigh. Now in your ears
something I fain would whisper, which yonder
ancient bell to me has told—as secret, as
dreadful, as heartfelt, as that yon midnight
bell to me revealeth, yon bell which more
hath known than any man, which hath
counted the pulsing of the oppressed hearts
of our fore-fathers. O, how she sighs! how
she laughs in her dreams, that ancient solemn,
tolling midnight bell! Hush! Hush! Much
then is told us which in day-time must not be
heard. Lo, now in cooler air, when all our
hearts’ loud clamour is lulled to rest, it softly
speaks, grows audible and steals upon nighthaunted over-wakeful souls! Oh, how she
sighs! how in her dreams she laughs! Dost
thou not hear how she secretly, dreadfully,
sweetly now speaketh to thee the agéd, deep
and solemn Midnight?
Chorus: O man, mark well!
What tolls the solemn midnight bell?
I lay asleep
Till haunting dreams broke slumber’s
Hush!
Chorus: Now agéd Mid-day sleeps.
Soprano: Sits he not drinking €’en now a
well-seasoned brown drop of golden bliss,
spell.
The world is deep.
And deeper far than day can tell.
golden wine?
Deep is her woe:
And o’er him, rustling her wings, fair Fortune
Joy deeper still than grief of heart.
smiles.
Woe says: Be gone!
Chorus: Fair fortune smiles! Thus smiles a
But Joy would have Eternity,
Ne’er ending everlasting day!
god!
Now agéd Mid-day sleeps.
Contralto: Rise, thou sleeper, Zarathustra!
Thou noon-tide sleeper!
Baritone: Rouse me not! Hush! Waxed not
the world this moment perfect? Lo, the golden
rounded ball! Who art thou, tell me, my
soul? How little sufficeth thee to be happy!
How long, after so deep a sleep, should’st
thou stay waking!
Chorus: O bliss. Now agéd Mid-day sleeps!
5. BARITONE SOLO WITH CHORUS
Baritone: God’s woe is deeper, thou strangely
wondrous world! snatch thou at God’s deep
woe, not at me! What am I? A delirious
sweet-sounding lyre, that is heard at midnight;
Soli and Chorus: Every joy for all things
craves Eternity. What craves not Joy? She is
more thirsty, more hungry, more heart-felt,
more awful, more secret than all our woe;
she craves love, she craves hate, she is
over-rich; so rich is Joy that she for grief sore
pineth. For earth, for you higher-born
mortals, even, longeth Joy the intractable, Joy
the rapturous. O bliss! O pain! O break,
heart! Joy craves Eternity, Joy craves for all
things endless day, eternal, everlasting, endless
day!
(Reproduced by permission of the publishers,
Boosey & Hawkes Ltd., London.)
GUILDFORD PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Leader:
Hugh Bean
Co-Leader:
John Ludlow
First Violins
Violas
Oboes
Trumpets
Hugh Bean
John Meek
Terence Macdonagh
Michael Hinton
Ted Hobart
John Ludlow
Philip TomKkins
Moyra Tomey
Gillian Bailey
Margaret Brookes
Cor Anglais
Edward Riches
Hilary Behrens
Gladys Jackson
Geoffrey Browne
Colin Clague
Robin Brightman
Leonard Lock
Bass Oboe
Patricia Cassidy
Joyce Pritchard
Lzonard Brain
Trombones
Jean Fletcher
Paul Silverthorne
Clarinets
Dudley Bright
Vito Gambazza
John Denman
Roger Wissin
Victor Slaymark
Bass Trombone
Eldon Fox
Wilfred Goddard
Bernard Bean
Ernest Greaves
Bass Clarinet
Gwen Cassidy
Edward Planas
Martin Hughes
Violoncelli
Justin Jones
Joyce Nixon
Hazel Powell
Robert Dent
Second Violins
Christina Macrae
Nicholas Maxted
Pauline Sadgrove
Jones
Tuba
Martin Fry
Bassoons
Anthony Brooks
Timpani
Linda Nealgrove
Roger Blair
Geoffrey Lynn
Basses
Stephen Moore
Marie-Louiszs
Michael Brittain
Contra Bassoon
Percussion
Barry Guy
Lionel Goring
Jack Less
Alfred Dukes
Horns
Jon Tolansky
Amberg
Constance Ames
Ninian Perry
Cynthia Dunn
David Edwards
Charles Cudmore
Peter Clack
Garth Morton
Flutes
Dennis Scard
Barbara Penny
Henry Messent
Charles Bloomfield
Fiona Hibbert
Ian Rhodes
Alan Baker
David Clack
Thelma Owen
Deryck Wareing
Stephen Hicking
Alfred Cursue
Harps
Alistair Smith
Andrew Fiske
The audience may be interested to know that the violin sections are listed in
alphabetical order after the first desk, because a rotation of desks is adopted in
this orchestra, so that all players have the opportunity of playing in all positions in
the section.