The thirty-fourth concert in the Enterprising series
Guildford Borough Council Concerts 1974-75
Civic Hall—Guildford
SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1974
at 7.45 p.m.
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.
Roy Gillard
Roy Gillard was born in Hirwaun, South
Wales. He began his studies with Walter
Guildford
Philharmonic
Gerhardt, and later with Granville Jones.
During his time as a student at the
Guildhall School of Music he was awarded
the Worshipful Company of Musicians
Silver Medal for the most outstanding
student, and was also invited to join the
London String Quartet. Since that time he
has been a leading member of the English
Orchestra
Fields, with whom he has recorded as
Guest Leader RICHARD LAYTON
soloist. He is at present the sub-leader of
Philharmonic Choir
Albeniz, 1860-1909
Chamber Orchestra, and, more recently,
with the Academy of St Martin in the
the London Symphony Orchestra.
El Corpus En Sevilla
El Corpus en Sevilla is a tone painting of
the Corpus Christi Procession and Festival.
Roy Gillard
The Procession, strewn with flowers, winds
its way along the streets and halts from
time to time while spontaneous songs are
improvised by the Votaries. This tone
Vernon Handley
picture is notable for the fascinating
interplay of two themes: a March and one
of the spontaneous songs. It ends with a
moving impression of the town after the
Procession has gone into the distance.
Violin Concerto in D
Stravinsky, 1882-1971
Toccata; Aria 1; Aria 2; Capriccio
When Stravinsky reacted against the
emotional colour and intensity of his early
works, he embraced neo-classicism, and
one of the outstanding examples of his
This concert is promoted by Guildford
‘back to Bach’ period is the Violin Concerto
Borough Council with financial assistance
in D. Yet that tag, so often applied to works
from the Arts Council of Great Britain
of this period is misleading, especially in
the first and last movements of this work,
for it goes beyond Bach and espouses a
cool objectivity which Bach’s very human
music could never have.
The first and last movements have the
hypnotic rhythms which we associate with
his big romantic ballets, but these are now
coldly orchestrated and studied for
themselves alone, rather than the colour
they can be dressed in. The soloist,
although given a virtuoso role, often calls
for virtuoso accompaniment, and his
melodic spans are rarely greater than
those attempted by the orchestra. Either
these two driving movements are a
powerful argument between soloist and
orchestra, or they are a tough and athletic
friendship. The two central arias are much
freer: both are lyrical, though never
sentimental and require great control of
phrasing from the soloist. They form an
admirable contrast to the attacking nature
of the outer movements, as well as a
chance to hear a tone from the soloist
which would be entirely out of place in
the Toccata or the Capriccio. The
Concerto is obviously diverting, but its
great importance in Stravinsky’s output lies
in the fact that although the colour and
richness of the earlier ballets has been
rejected, this lean and angular Concerto
could have been written by no other
composer.
Ode to Death, Opus 38 for Chorus and
Orchestra
Holst, 1874-1934
In the centenary year of Holst’s birth, this
remarkably original British composer
seems to have had very few performances
of his more important and neglected works.
Organisations pay lip service to the
centenary by producing more
performances of The Planets, The Perfect
Fool Ballet Music, and the Hymn of
Jesus, The great Choral Symphony,
and four years before the Choral
Symphony. In it he employed, as well as
his own stark originality, a chromatic
harmony for certain passages, which was
never again to appear in his work.
Considered by many one of his finest
works, it is probably performed very little
simply because of its title, a superficial
response to which is wholly misleading.
Whitman’s experiences on the battlefields
of the American Civil War had led him to
see death as a blessed release, and it was a
development of this feeling that he voiced
in his Ode. Such a different approach
would be bound to attract the originalminded Holst, a composer always
searching for the profound, the remote,
yet never treating any unusual topic
superficially. Holst’s setting mirrors
precisely Whitman’s words: ‘Lovely and
soothing death’ is given a cool, but
beautiful, melody, the ‘chant of fullest
welcome’ is sung to a majestic procession,
the ‘loving, floating ocean’ receives the
lovely chromatic harmony which elsewhere
the composer eschews. Perhaps the most
extraordinary stroke of composition comes
at the end when the sopranos float a
beautiful song, ‘Over the tree tops’, while
the rest of the choir intone their original
welcome to death in the background. This
gives a formal completeness to the work
which would otherwise have been difficult
to achieve with the words as they stood.
There is nothing morbid or sickly about
the Ode or its setting. It is an original
view of an honest idea, and as such it
is unique in music.
ODE TO DEATH
Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving,
arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all,
Sooner or later delicate death.
to
each,
Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and
knowledge curious,
performed on Guildford in 1969, Egdon
Heath and Hammersmith have received no
more performances than usual; The
Morning of the Year, the Double Violin
Concerto, the Ode to Death have had one
or two airings, or none at all.
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise!
Holst wrote the Ode to Death in 1919,
three years after The Planets was finished
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above
praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding
death.
Dark mother always gliding near with soft
feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of
fullest welcome?
all,
I
bring
thee
a
song
that
when
thou
indeed come, come unfalteringly.
must
Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I
joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee,
adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the
high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and
thoughful night.
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering
wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and
well-veil’d death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the
myriad fields and prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the
teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee
O death.
Walt Whitman
the ideas in the psalm that it could not be
written as a theme with its set. Just as in
the psalm the psalmist is confident of the
Lord’s constant support, he does not reach
the House of the Lord until the end of
the poem. The composer therefore
reserves the full statement of John Blow’s
lovely tune for the very end of the work.
The meditations on the tune are variations
on parts of it worked into illustrations of
contrasted ideas of the psalm, leading to a
triumphant statement of the tune itself
when we have entered the House of the
Lord.
Introduction—The Lord is my Shepherd, I
will fear no evil: a pastoral scene with
flutes and sheep bells interrupted by an
agitated and evil figure on the brass.
Meditation 1--He leadeth me beside still
waters: a tranquil allegro moderato,
reminiscent of Bach.
Meditation 2—Thy rod and staff they comfort
me: allegro deciso; nobody but Bliss could
have written this forthright determined
variation, the natural accents of the tune
having been brought forward one beat.
Meditation 3—Lambs:
dotted note tunes
derived from Blow’s last phrase form an
intermezzo.
INTERVAL
During the interval refreshments will be
served by members of the Philharmonic
Society in the Surrey Room.
Meditation 4—He restoreth my soul: another
determined allegro, this time with clear
phrases of John Blow’s tune emerging every
now and then.
Meditation 5—In green pastures: a movement
in three parts, two illustrations of the
pastures flanking the most beautiful tune,
which is in itself meditative as well as a
meditation on Blow’s tune.
Interlude—Through the valley of the shadow
of death: the full orchestra and a battery
of percussion are subjected to variations of
time, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4 and 7/4, in one of
the most terrifying orchestral passages ever
written.
Meditations on a Theme of John Blow
Bliss, b 1891
The Meditations received its first
performance in 1955. Sir Arthur had found
amongst the anthems of John Blow in
Musica Brittanica, a tune in the Sinfonia
for Strings which comes before the
anthem The Lord is my Shepherd. He got
the idea of a set of variations, but the
form the work took was so influenced by
Finale—1In the House of the Lord: the brass
intone as a chorale the first phrase of
John Blow’s tune, but Bliss is not mawkish.
If we are in the House of the Lord, would
it not be a good thing to dance? The great
dance ensues, bells herald the arrival of
John Blow, his tune is triumphantly stated.
He retires to a more tranquil version, and
we are left with the scene as it was at the
beginning. Memories of the different
meditations are quoted; there is one last
look at the terrifying evil prospect, and
then a chord of confident affirmation
finishes the work.
The Meditations is all things as an
orchestral work: variety and contrast are
expressed with musical economy, though
with great recourse to orchestral virtuosity,
and couched in an original approach to
variation form, which makes it one of the
composer’s masterpieces. On closer
acquaintance it becomes one of the most
emotionally satisfying works of the
SATURDAY 16 NOVEMBER
at 7.30 p.m.
A concert promoted by the South East
Music Trust in CANTERBURY
CATHEDRAL (By kind permission of
the Dean and Chapter)
twentieth century.
Overture-Fantasia ‘Hamlet’—
Tchaikovsky
Variations on a Rococo theme for Cello
and Orchestra—Tchaikovsky
QOde to Death for chorus and orchestra
—Holst
Meditations on a theme of John Blow—
Bliss
Rohan de Saram—Cello
Vernon Handley—Conductor
Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra
Co-Leader John Ludlow
Philharmonic Choir
Tickets £1.50; £1.25; £1.00; 75p; 50p and 30p
available
from
The
Friends
Office,
Flat
1,
8 The Precincts, Canterbury.
SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER 1974
at 3.00 p.m.
CIVIC HALL, GUILDFORD
Overture ‘Prince Igor’—Borodin
Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini—
Rachmaninov
*Symphony No. 5 in F, opus 76—Dvorak
Jacques Klein—Pianoforte
*Christopher Adey
Vernon Handley
Conductors