The thirty-third concert in the Enterprising series
Guildford Corporation Concerts 1973-74
This concert is promoted by Guildford
Corporation with financial assistance from
the Arts Council of Great Britain
Civic Hall—Guildford
SATURDAY 9 MARCH 1974
at 7.45 p.m.
As well as his serious work, he has
written a number of ‘pop’ songs, several of
which have had great success, ‘Mrs. Brown
you've got a lovely daughter’ being his best
known, and for his work in this field he
received an Ivor Novello Award. Two
outstanding stage roles which won him
critical acclaim were ‘Lumkin’ in the
Manchester 69 production ‘She Stoops to
Conquer’, and ‘Titus’ in ‘Titus
Andronicus’ at the Round House. He is at
present preparing with the Royal
Shakespeare Company for a production at
Guildford
Philharmonic
Orchestra
Leader: HUGH BEAN
Philharmonic Choir
Trevor Peacock
Vernon Handley
Conductor
Trevor Peacock
Trevor Peacock is one of the most
versatile actor-writers in modern British
entertainment. He has acted with the Old
Vic Company, and is a leading member
of the Manchester 69. He wrote and
starred in his own musical, ‘Erb’, which ran
at the Strand Theatre in London in 1970,
and he also wrote the script of the film
‘He who rides a tiger’.
the Aldwych.
Philharmonic Choir
The Philharmonic Choir is the larger of the
two choirs under the conductorship of the
Musical Director, who acknowledges with
thanks the help he has received in training
the choir from Mr. Kenneth Lank, and
accompanists Miss Mary Rivers, Miss
Patricia Finch and Miss Prudence Edden.
PETER AND THE WOLF, Opus 67
Prokofiev 1891—1953
It is strange that Prokofiev should be known
to a vast public mainly through his lighter
works: the ‘Classical’ Symphony, ‘Peter
and the Wolf’, Lieutenant Kije, “The Love
of Three Oranges’. These clever and
charming works have blinded critics and
public alike to an essentially serious
composer whose concertos and symphonies
are among the most deeply felt of the
century. This statement notwithstanding,
Prokofiev is his own worst enemy, for a
work like ‘Peter and the Wolf” is a tour de
force and contains characteristic musical
devices which are found with more
elaboration in his serious works.
He lived much of his life in exile from
Russia, but then in 1934 he voluntarily
returned; during both periods in his
home land he was often out of favour with
the authorities, mainly because of his refusal
to write the kind of music that they thought
a Soviet composer should write. It was two
years after his return that he wrote ‘Peter
and the Wolf’—‘a symphonic tale for
orchestra’. It was designed in the first place
to teach anyone (not just children) the
instruments of the modern symphony
orchestra, but it becomes a more important
work than that because of the consistently
high musical inspiration. The characters in
the tale are represented by instruments in
the orchestra, but Prokofiev has used
positive statements of Stravinsky’s eagerness
thesc instruments not only for their
to challenge the composers referred to in
special characteristics, but so that
the above quotation.
in the tuttis each character contributes
The first Psalm is ‘Hear my Prayer, O
to ‘symphonic build-up’. The
Lord’ and, according to the composer, was
Narrator’s part is very important and any
conceived in a state of religious and
musical ebullience. The second and third
one of many approaches can be adopted by
him. The piece works just as well if he
simply draws all his information with
movements, Psalm 40 followed by Psalm
impeccable timing or if he adopts a
(though not musically), for Psalm 40 is a
150, are more interdcpendent emotionally
comedian’s approach to the procedure, or
prayer that a new canticle may be put into
even combines the two. This latter is
our mouths and the beginning of Psalm
probably the most successful because it is
easy to play the piece for laughs, and yet
first and foremost both in words and
second movement is fugal; the last a
music it is a narration.
150—Alleluia—is that new canticle. The
number of sections. Stravinsky is not averse
to using the thoroughly romantic device
of the cycle in his last movement and, after
SYMPHONY OF PSALMS
Stravinsky 1882—1972
Stravinsky wrote his Symphony of Psalms
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
that the Symphony ‘composed to the glory
is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the
impact it has made. Whether it is divided
of God’ is dedicated to the Boston
Symphony Orchestra’. It won immediate
great a gap as Stravinsky would have us
in 1930 and the score bears the message
from other settings of these Psalms by as
recognition and recently a reviewer in a
London magazine said that he felt it might
believe is doubtful. It is hard to cast
aspersions on other composers’ sincerity
in future come to be regarded as Stravinsky’s
merely because of their harmonic idiom.
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
Its sincerity is undoubtedly the thing that
will make it live.
i
Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, et
deprecationem mea : 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 miserie, et de luto fecis. Et statuit
work as an experience.
super petram pedes meos : et direxit
There can be no doubt, however, about the
gressus
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
meos.
Et immisit in os meum canticum novum,
carmen Deo nostro. Videbunt multi, et
timebunt :
et sperabunt in Domino.
111
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 tubz : 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
During the interval refreshments will be
served in the Surrey Room by members
of the Concertgoers’ Society.
SYMPHONY No. 8
Shostakovich b. 1906
Adagio
Allegretto
Allegro Non Troppo
Largo
- Allegretto
“Life is beautiful. All that is dark and
ignominious will disappear. All that is
beautiful will triumph”—Dmitri
Shostakovich.
During the Second World War
Shostakovich wrote a trilogy of
symphonies—No. 7 The Leningrad in
1941, No. 8 in 1942, and No. 9 in 1945.
The 7th indicates the determination of a
Nation united in its own defence and the
9th, which is the simplest of the three, is a
victorious paan after victory. The
centrepiece of the three, No. 8, is the most
profound and moving and reflects the
tragedy and bitterness of war. It is clear
that the composer has written in this
symphony, one of his most personal musical
utterances. It stands beside Nos. 1, 5 and
10 as one of his finest essays in the
symphonic form.
The first movement begins with a long
and tragic theme on the strings of the
orchestra, new material appears in a section
of uneven bars although 5/4 underlies
much of this section. A straight forward
development of these two pieces of
material leads to a shattering climax and
there is a very anguished period when the
poignant string sound is hammered by a
relentless rhythm which, in itself, is part of
the previously heard auxiliary theme.
In the Allegro section of this movement,
the themes so far heard undergo a complete
transformation, one of Shostakovich’s
favourite devices for the continuity of a first
movement. After the transformation, a
formal recapitulation takes place, the cor
anglais having a very important role.
The arch of the first movement and the
elaboration which constitutes it demands a
simple form to follow. The grotesque
march, which is the second movement, is
thus ideally placed. The mood again is
clear cut and can surely only be associated
with a victorious procession of cruel
conquerors.
The last three movements follow without a
break. The first of them is obviously a
rejoining of battle. The simplest of figures
beginning on the violas establishes that this
movement is to be a toccata and throughout
its length the crotchets never cease. This
relentlessness is unbearable and it is
supposed to be. After such a brainwashing
experience, it is inevitable that the fourth
movement will take us back to the human
emotions of the first movement. It is in fact
a passacaglia on the second subject of the
first movement, indeed the theme appears
12 times in the bass instruments. Passages
for horn, piccolo, clarinet, flute, all give
the impression of individual as well as
corporate suffering, and the funereal picture
is allowed to stand before us with no real
ending, so that the join to the finale is a
real expression of the connection between
tragedy and the necessary turn to hope. For
the first time, we are in a brighter world.
Shostakovich becomes simple and pastoral,
with strange echoes of the wasted, scarred
world around.
This is all really an introduction: three
themes—a bassoon solo, a short section for
violins and flutes and a lengthy one for
the cellos are the material of the
movement. A working out begins which
includes a fugue, which in turn heightens
the tension again, the climax is a repeat of
the opening Largo. The terror subsides, a
bass clarinet gives the darker colour to the
pastoral elements heard earlier and leads
to what must be the most beguiling coda
in all of Shostakovich’s music. Solos for
bass clarinet, violin and cello and a short
trio of bassoons, produce a soothing
characterisation of all the agitation in the
musical material of the symphony. When,
finally, the high register of the violins seems
about to end the experience, the double
basses mysteriously add three notes which
are the fundamental melody of the entire
work. They are heard twice, molto vibrato,
and then, once again, in augmentation.