Guildford Borough Council Concerts 1975/6
ST.JOHN
PASSION
Bach
Nave D 60p
N(.)
067
This performance is promoted by Guildford Borough Council
with financial assistance from the South East Arts Association
Saturday 3rd April 1976 at 7.30 p.m.
Guildford Cathedral
(By kind permission of the Dean and Chapter)
Guildford
Philharmonic
Orchestra
Leader
JOHN LUDLOW
Philharmonic Choir
MERYL DROWER
PATRICIA TAYLOR
JULIAN PIKE
RONALD MURDOCK
MICHAEL BAUER
GLYN DAVENPORT
Harpsichord
— JOHN FORSTER
Conductor— VERNON HANDLEY
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 Mary Rivers, Patricia Finch and Prudence Smith.
In 1973 the choir made its first recording with the orchestra ‘Intimation
of Immortality’ by Gerald Finzi.
MERYL DROWER
Meryl Drower was born in Wales in 1951. At the age of seventeen she
won a Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where she
studied singing with Meriel St. Clair. While at college she won a number
of prizes including the Leslie Woodgate Prize for oratorio, the Major Van
Someren—Godfrey Prize for English Song, the Harry Evans Award, the
Cuthbert-Smith Award and the Agnes Nicholls Harty Trophy, in addition
to obtaining her A.R.C.M, At present she holds the Royal College of
Music’s opera school scholarship which she won at the end of the 1973
academic year.
In addition to her successes at the College, she has toured Wales and
Northern Europe as a soloist with the Welsh National Youth Orchestra.
She has made several oratorio appearances at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon,
given recitals and sung with many choral societies throughout the
country.
PATRICIA TAYLOR
Patricia Taylor, who comes from Leeds, studied at the Royal Manchester
College of Music under Elsie Thurston and Frederic Cox where she was
awarded the Imperial League of Opera prize and the Curtis Gold Medal.
Whilst still a student, she became a member of the BBC Northern
Singers and also broadcast as a soloist. She won two awards from the
Countess of Munster Memorial Fund in 1969 and 1972. In 1970 she
won the Richard Tauber Competition and also studied with Conchita
Badia in Spain. She began her studies in Vienna in 1971 under llse
Rapf and Anton Dermota and was a finalist in the s’"Hertogenbosch
International Singing Competition. She has given many concerts
throughout Britain (including one with the Hallé and with Alan Bush in
the Wigmore Hall), Spain and in Vienna. She has appeared with Scottish
Opera and the Phoenix Opera companies.
JULIAN PIKE
Julian Pike began his musical career as a chorister at Winchester
Cathedral, and continued singing as well as violin playing until after he
had been at the Royal College of Music for some years. After
concentrating on singing, he won several major awards including prizes
for Lieder, English Song, and the prize for the best singer of the year.
He has appeared throughout the country as an oratorio and recital singer,
having sung the role of the Evangelist in many places (including Guildford
Cathedral two years ago). He has appeared on television, taking part in
an operatic master class with Geraint Evans, and has studied in France
with Pierre Bernac, appearing on French television in a master class with
him. At present he is a member of the BBC Singers, and is to be heard
frequently as a soloist with them.
RONALD MURDOCK
Ronald Murdock is a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, now resident in this
country. He has studied with Bernard Diamant in Montreal, and
Professor Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling in Switzerland.
He has appeared in recitals and oratorio performances in Canada and
Europe, as well as in England where he has sung at the Windsor, Camden
and Brighton Festivals as soloist. He is
a member of the English Opera
Group, and of Phoenix Opera.
MICHAEL BAUER
Michael Bauer studied music at the Royal College of Music with Redvers
Llewellyn for four years, the last of which he spent at the Royal College
of Music Opera School. He later joined the London Opera Centre and
whilst there appeared in several productions, and in two
Master Classes with Geraint Evans, and Tito Gobbi.
In 1973, Michael Bauer was asked to sing in the world premiere of
Benjamin Britten’s ““Death in Venice’’, and he subsequently appeared in
this opera in Venice, Brussels and at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1976,
Michael Bauer joined the newly formed English Music Theatre
company as a principal artist.
GLYN DAVENPORT
Glyn Davenport was born in 1948 in Yorkshire. He entered the Royal
College of Music on a Foundation Scholarship and studied with Sir Keith
Faulkner and Redvers Llewellyn. In 1970, he was awarded a German
Government Scholarship and made a special study of German Lieder
with Jacob Stampfli in Hamburg. He now studies with Paul Hamburger
and Thomas Hemsley.
In 1972 Glyn Davenport won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Award. He
made a highly successful recital debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1973,
and since then he has appeared in concerts throughout the country.
In addition to his work as a recitalist and concert singer, Glyn Davenport
has also appeared with the English Opera Group.
Glyn Davenport has recently become a winner of the Southern Musicians
Scheme, promoted by the Southern Arts Association.
VERNON HANDLEY
Vernon Handley has been Guildford’s Musical Director since 1962. He is
now one of the busiest British Conductors, broadcasting with all the BBC
Regional Orchestras, about 30 concerts a year, and appearing regularly
as guest Conductor with the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic
and New Philharmonia Orchestras.
Vernon Handley is particularly noted for his championship of British
music and in 1974 was voted Conductor of the Year by the Composers’
Guild of Great Britain.
He has currently a dozen records in the world catalogue, including two
best sellers, one with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and one with the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, and he will be recording six more discs
in the present year.
ST. JOHN PASSION—BACH
1685-1750
Bach took up his appointment of Cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig
in 1723 and during his 27 years there he wrote the majority of his 300
Cantatas and Motets to Latin texts, the Christmas Oratorio to a German
text, the Passions, the four so-called “"short’”” Masses, the great Hohe
Mass and a number of other Church works. The greatness of the St. John
Passion has never been questioned and it is largely due to this greatness
that the work has survived and still survives various treatments
which different singing traditions impose upon it. Regardless of which of
these traditions one has been brought up in (and most of them have at
their core some worthwhile characteristics), there can be little doubt that
the dramatic force of the St. John Passion in Bach’s day was much more
obviously realised than it is today. Roughly 250 years of sophistication is
not necessarily the best training for mankind if the full force of ""Jesu,
turn to look on me”’ is to be appreciated. The vicious howling of
“Crucify”’, where B flat and D in two parts of the choir is penetrated by
the G and E flat of the two other parts, must have been as shocking to
Bach’s contemporaries as some of the sounds of Stravinsky and the serial
composers have been to our own. Successive generations have produced
beautiful tone and a lack of conviction to these sounds until their horror
has almost disappeared. Yet perhaps the greatest moments of the Passion
are not realised through harmonic or contrapuntal means, but through
the single superbly judged lines of the Recitatives, for in them Bach
expressed more concisely and more movingly the feelings and thoughts
which orchestral or choral treatment, even in the hands of expressive
masters like Strauss or Britten, would only obscure.
PART |
1
Lord and Master in all lands
Chorus
2
Jesus went forth with his disciples
3
4
5
6
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus saith unto them, | am he
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus answered, | have told you
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
7
O mighty love, O love beyond all measure
Chorale
8
That the saying might be fulfilled
Recit.
Thy will, O God, be always done
Then the band and the chief captain
Chorale
Recit. (Tenor)
11
Chains of bondage that | wrought me
Air (Alto)
12
And Simon Peter followed Jesus
Recit,
13
| follow in gladness to meet Thee
Air (Soprano)
14
Now that disciple was known
Recit.
9
10
(Tenor and Bass)
(Tenor)
(Soprano, Tenor
and
15
16
Ah! whence this hatred shown Thee?
Now Annas had sent him bound
Bass)
Chorale
Recit. (Tenor)
17
Art thou not one of his disciples
Chorus
18
19
He denied it, and said, | am not
Ah! my soul, what end awaiteth thee
Air (Tenor)
20
Peter in forgetfulness
Chorale
Recit.
(Tenor and Bass)
PART I
He, Whose life was as the light
Chorale
Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas
Recit.
If this man were not a malefactor
Chorus
Then said Pilate unto them
Recit.
It is not lawful
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
That the saying of Jesus
(Tenor and Bass)
(Tenor and Bass)
O King of glory
Pilate therefore said unto him
Chorale
Not this man, but Barabbas
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor)
Now Barabbas was a robber
Recit.
(Tenor and Bass)
Come, ponder, O my soul
Arioso (Bass)
Behold Him: See!
Air (Tenor)
And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns
Recit. (Tenor)
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and
Recit. (Tenor)
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and
Chorus
Hail, thou King of the Jews
And they smote him with their hands
Crucify him
Pilate saith unto them
We have a law
When Pilate therefore heard that saying
But the Jews cried out
If thou let this man go
When Pilate therefore heard that saying
Away with him
Pilate saith unto them
Recit.
We have no king but Caesar
Then delivered he him unto them
Chorus
Haste, poor souls ensnared in treason
And there they crucified him
Write thou not, the king of the Jews
Pilate answered, What | have written
Bass)
Bass)
Bass)
Bass)
{Tenor and Bass)
Recit. (Tenor)
Air (Bass) with Chorus
Recit. (Tenor)
Chorus
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
Thy Name is shining on me
Chorale
The soldiers therefore, when they had
Recit. (Tenor)
crucified
Let us not divide it
That the Scripture might be fulfilled
See Him now, the Righteous One
Chorus
Recit.
(Tenor and Bass)
All is fulfilled
Chorale
Recit. (Tenor and Bass)
Air (Alto)
And he bowed his head
My Lord and Saviour, let me ask Thee
Air
And from that hour that disciple took her
And behold, the veil of the Temple
Recit,
(Tenor)
(Bass)
with Chorale
My heart, behold the world intent
Recit. (Tenor)
Arioso (Tenor)
O heart, melt in weeping
Air (Soprano)
The Jews therefore, because it was the
preparation
Recit. (Tenor)
Help us, O Thou Son of God
And after this, Joseph of Arimathea
Chorale
Recit. (Tenor)
Lie still, O sacred limbs
Ah! Lord, when my last end is come
Chorus
Chorale