performances
presented by
the Department of Music
School of Performing Arts
Peace and Harmony
a musical plea for peace in our time
February 2000
University
#fi; of Surrey
SATURDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2000 at 7.30 pm
GUILDFORD CATHEDRAL
by kind permission of the Dean & Chapter
GUILDFORD PHILHARMONIC CHOIR
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY CHOIR
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
leader Anne Hullett
DIANA GILCHRIST soprano
GLYN DAVENPORT baritone
conductors JEREMY BACKHOUSE & SEBASTIAN FORBES
Mars, from The Planets
HOLST
A Prayer
BRIDGE
Dies natalis
FINZI
short
interval
Dona nobis pacem
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Guildford Philharmonic Choir Officers
Chairman
Dr John Trigg
Membership
Noreen Ayton
Friends
Susan Ranft
University Orchestral Officers
Stage Management
Mark Jesson, Michelle Lewis, Laura White
Secretary
Eléonore Egginton
Librarian
John Sims
Duty Concert Managers
Helen Harmer, Alison Sherlock, Emma Hollow
Assistant
Jacqueline Bednar
Duty Tonmeister
Lee Hyun-Kook
Assistants
Michael Common, Gareth Davies
Performance Manager
Pauline Johnson
Director of Music
Prof Sebastian Forbes
DIANA GILCHRIST (soprano) is from Canada and studied in New York and London.
Her solo career as a coloratura began in North America with Mozart rles and
concert performances and broadcasts.
In 1989 her operatic career took her to
Germany (Koblenz, then Mainz). Recent rdles have included Queen of the Night in
Vienna and Berlin. She continues to enjoy concert work, and she and her husband,
Canadian pianist Shelley Katz, appear regularly together in concerts, radio and
television.
A CD was released in 1999 and more are in preparation.
GLYN DAVENPORT (baritone) studied at the Royal College of Music and then in
Hamburg. International competition successes included the Kathleen Ferrier Prize.
His Wigmore Hall début met with critical acclaim and led to his first stage
appearances with Britten's English Opera Group. He has appeared in the UK and
Europe particularly in operas by Britten and Henze, and is also active in recital work,
especially the Lied, and oratorio in the UK and Europe, in repertoire ranging from
Monteverdi to Tippett.
His teaching of singing includes Surrey University.
The GUILDFORD PHILHARMONIC CHOIR was founded in 1947 by the Borough of
Guildford and has worked with Vernon Handley, Sir Charles Groves and Sir David
Willcocks (the current President). It is well known in the South East for its
performances of the standard repertoire and also for 20th-century English works,
with recordings of works by Finzi and Patrick Hadley. Jeremy Backhouse took over
the conductorship in January 1995.
SURREY UNIVERSITY MUSIC DEPARTMENT, founded in 1970, has always
maintained a special interest in the practical side of its activities, with its Symphony
Orchestra and University Choir giving annual performances in this Cathedral under
their staff conductors, Nicholas Conran and Sebastian Forbes. Tonight's orchestral
leader, Anne Hullett, is in her final BMus year and studies violin at the University with
Paul Robertson.
JEREMY BACKHOUSE (conductor) was Head Chorister at Canterbury Cathedral
and then studied Music at Liverpool University. He has worked as Music Editor for
the RNIB, and for EMI as Literary Editor and then Consultant Editor, and combines
record producing with freelance conducting. Amongst the many orchestras and
choirs he conducts is the Vasari Singers, with whom he won the Sainsbury's Choir of
the Year Competition in 1988 and has undertaken numerous concerts, broadcasts,
and recordings. Particularly high acclaim followed his CDs of the Vaughan Williams
Mass, and the Howells Requiem and Frank Martin Mass.
SEBASTIAN FORBES (conductor) studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then
at Cambridge University. He was a BBC producer (1964-67) before becoming a
university lecturer — first at Bangor and from 1972 at Surrey, where he has been
Professor of Music since 1981 and, in addition, Director of Music since 1991. His
extensive output of compositions — orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental, and
choral — goes back to the early 1960s . Among recent works are String Quartet No
4 (for the Medici), Sonata-Rondo for piano (for Jana Frenklova), and Reflections for
organ (for Margaret Phillips). In progress is Duo-fantasy for clarinet and piano.
—o l=
Peace and Harmony
a musical plea for peace in our time
The year 2000 is an appropriate moment from which
to look back over the last
hundred years and consider how artists have sensitive
ly responded to their
environment. For us, the century was marked by two
World Wars, and the new year
by the widespread reading of the Millennium Resolution
, expressing the hope of
peace.
Tonight's programme comprises music by four English
composers, of the
early twentieth century, whose collective vision runs
parallel to this theme. The
threat of war is constant, of course, but so is man's sincere
search for its avoidance
and plea for mutual co-operation.
Artists, including all poets and composers
represented in this programme, are able to offer
a further dimension:
premonition.
In some ways Holst's style stands apart from the English
tradition. His view, ‘I only
study things that suggest music to me’, brought quick
response when, in 1913, a
friend introduced him to astrology.
Mars, the bringer of war, completed in draft
before the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, was aptly described
1927 as ‘the most ferocious piece in existence’ and remains
by Richard Capell in
as powerful today.
It was indeed bold of Frank Bridge to choose a text of German
origin (Thomas a
Kempis, 1380?7-1471) in 1916 to express his pacifist beliefs. The
result is his only
major choral work and suggests that he had all the ability to contribute
more fully to
our established tradition.
A Prayer is carefully structured, and within its subtle
harmonic idiom we may gain a glimpse of his later, more revolutionar
y style.
Finzi’'s loss, at an early age, of his father and three older brothers
intensified, for him,
the impermanence of human existence. His music is also marked
by unusually
sensitive response to English texts and his refined writing for strings,
enhanced, no
doubt, by his experience as a conductor.
Dies natalis, to words by Thomas
Traherne (16367-74) took time to complete but is fully worthy
of its recognition as
one of his finest works.
In Dona nobis pacem, composed to mark the centenary of the
Huddersfiel
Society, Vaughan Williams anticipated Britten's A War Requiem by some
not least in embodying war poems in the context of words
biblical and otherwise, are drawn from a wide range.
d Choral
25 years,
from the Mass.
Texts,
The cantata offers an urgent
warning in a decade of turbulence as well as a hope for a better life
on Earth. Both
Holst and Vaughan Williams had long been attracted to the poetry of the American
Walt Whitman, whose collection Drum Taps (1865), from which the
cantata’s texts
are largely drawn, reflects the Crimean war, as does the “Angel of Death”
speech
given by John Bright in the House of Commons in 1855. The composer’s
setting of
the Agnus Dei ranges widely from peace to anguish, and the work takes
us through
the reality of war, a hope for reconciliation, a noble funeral procession,
and a
positive vision of ultimate peace.
© Sebastian Forbes, 2000
Gustav HOLST
(1874-1934)
From The Planets, for orchestra
,
Mars, the bringer of war (1914)
Frank BRIDGE
A Prayer (1916), for cheir and orchestra
Grant me Thy grace, most merciful Jesus, that it may be with me,
and may labour me, and continue with me to the end.
(1879-1941)
Grant me always to will and desire that which is most acceptable to Thee,
and which pleaseth Thee best.
Let Thy will be mine, and let my will always follow Thine
and agree perfectly therewith.
Grant that | may die to all things in the world, and for Thy sake
love to be despised and not to be known in this world.
Grant that | may rest in Thee above all things that can be desired,
and that my heart may be at peace in Thee.
Thou art the true peace of the heart, Thou art its only rest;
out of Thee all things are irksome and restless.
In this very peace which is in Thee, the one supreme Eternal God,
| will sleep and take my rest.
Thomas a Kempis in translation
Dies natalis (1926 & 1938-9), for soprano and strings
Gerald FINZI
(1901-56)
Intrada: Andante con mot —
Rhaposody (Recitativo stromentato): Andante con moto
The Rapture (Danza): Allegro vivace e giojoso
Wonder ( Arioso): Andante
The Salutation (Aria): Tempo commodo
Intrada
(strings only, leading with a break into Rhapsody)
Rhapsody ( Recitativo stromentato)
Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness? | was a stranger, which at my entrance into
the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys; my knowledge was Divine. | was entertaind like
an Angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory. Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator’s praises,
and could not make more melody to Adam than to me. Certainly Adam All appear’d new, and strange at first,
inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. All things were spotless and pure and glorious. The corn was
orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reap’d nor was ever sown. | thought it had stood everlasting
to everlasting. The green trees, when | saw them first, transported and ravished me, their sweeetness and
unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ectasy, they were strange and wonderful things.
O what venerable creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And the young men glitttering and
sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! | knew not that they were born or
should die; but all things abided etenally. | knew not that they were sins of complaints or law. | dream’d not
of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. | saw all in the peace of
Eden. Everything was at rest, free and immortal.
The Rapture { Danza)
Sweet Infancy!
From God abov
O Heavenly Fire! O Sacred Light!
Being sent, the Gift doth me enflame
How Fair and bright!
To prais his Name;
How Great am |
The stars do mov,
Whom the whol World doth magnify!
The Sun doth shine, to shew his Lov.
O hevenly Joy!
O how Divine
O Great and Sacred Blessedness
Am I! To all this Sacred Wealth,
Which | possess!
This Life and Health,
So great a Joy
Who rais’d? Who mine
Who did irto my Arms convey
Did make the same! What hand divine!
Wonder (Arioco)
The Salutation (Aria)
How like an Angel came | down!
These little Limbs,
How bright are all things here!
These Eys and Hands which here | find,
When first among his Works | dia appear
This panting Heart wherwith my Life
O how their Glory did me crown!
begins;
The World resembled his ETERNITY,
Where have ye been? Behind
In which my Soul did walk;
What Curtain were ye from me hid so
And evry thing that | did see
long!
Did with me talk.
Where was, in what
Abyss, my new-made
Tongue?
The Skies in their Magnificence,
The lovly lively Air,
O how divine, how soft, how sweet,
how
fairl
When silent
|
So many thousand thousand Years
The Stars did entertain my Sense;
And all the Works of God so bright
and pure,
Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos ly,
How could | Smiles, or Tears,
Or Lips, or Hands, or Ears perceiv?
So rich and great, did seem,
Welcom ye Treasures which | now receiv.
As if they ever must endure
In my Esteem.
From Dust | rise,
A Nativ Health and Innocence
These brighter Regions which salute mine Eys
And out of nothing now awake;
Within my Bones did grow,
A Gift from God | take:
And while my God did all his Glories
The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Skies
show
The Sun and Stars are mine; if these | prize.
| felt a vigor in ray Sense
That was all SPIRiT: | within 4id fow
A Stranger here
With seas of Life like Wine;
Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,
| nothing in the Worid did know
Strange Treasures lodg’d in this fair World
But ‘twas Divine.
appear,
Strange all and New to me:
But that they mine should be who Nothing was,
That Strangest is all; yet brought to pass.
Thomas Traherne
Cantata: Dona nobis pacem (1936)
Ralph VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS
for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra
]
Lento (Soprano and chcir) —
1]
Allegro moderato (choi:) —
1
The Reconciliation: Andantino (baritone and choir; soprano) —
v
Dirge for Two Veterans: Moderato alla marcia (choir) —
v
L’ istesso tempo (soloists and choir)
(1872-1958)
Agnus Dei
qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona nobis pacem.
O Lamb of God,
that takest away the sins of the world,
grant us thy peace.
Beat | beat ! drums !-blow! bugles ! blow |
Through the windows—through the doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Irto the solemn church, and scatter the congregation ,
In*a the school where the scholar is studying;
Le:: ‘e not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor *4e peaceful farmer any pesce, ploughing his field, or gathering in his grain,
So fiet=e you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat | b-at ! drums !-bluw | bugles ! blow !
Over the *raffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for the sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep
in those beds.
No bargainers’ bargains by day—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat ! peat | drums !—blow ! bugles ! blow !
Make ne parley—step for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
M.nd not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
(Walt Whitman)
Reconciliation
World over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beatiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly, wash again and ever
again this soilzd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
| look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—| draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
{(Walt Whitman)
Dirge for Two Veterans
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finshed Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo, the moon ascerding,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and the silent moon.
| see a sad procession,
And | hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding
As with voices and with tears.
| hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father,
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans, son and father, dropped together,
And the double grave awaits them.
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined,
‘ Tis the mother’s large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.
O strcng dead-march you please me !
O moor intense with the silvery face you soothe me !
O my soldiers twain ! O my veterans passing to burial !
What | have | also give to you.
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
(Walt Whitman)
The Angel of Death has been abraad throughout the land; you may almost hear the
beating of his wings. There is nc one as of old ...... to sprinkle with blood the lintel
and the two side-posts of our coors, that he may spare and pass on.
(John Bright)
Dona nobis pacem
We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble !
The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the
sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and they have devoured
the land ....... and those that dwell therein......
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved......
Is there no balm in Gilead?; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health
of the daughter of my people recovered?
Jeremiah VIl
‘0O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong.’
Daniel x. 19.
‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former ..... and in this
place will | give peace.’
Haggai Il.
8.
‘Nation shall not lift up a sword aginst nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
And-none shall make them afra‘d, neither shall the sword go through their land.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Open to me the gates oi righteousness, | will go into them.
Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled; and let them
hear, and say, it is the truth.
And it shall come, that | will gather all nations and tongues.
And they shall come and see my glory. And | will set a sign among them, snd they shall
declare my glory among the nations.
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which | will make, shall remain before me,
so shall seed and your name remain for ever.’
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.
(Adapted from Micah iv. 3, Leviticus xxvi. 6, Psalms Ixxxv. 10, and cxviii. 19,
Isaiah xliii. 9, and Ixvi. 18-22, and Luke ii. 14.)