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Concert
May 2006
PROGRAMME NOTES
by
Michael Bell
(Louis-)
Hector BERLIOZ (1803-1869) France
“Les
Francs Juges”
– Overture,
Op. 3
Born at
Cote St. Andre, near Grenoble in 1803, and died
in Paris in 1869 aged 65, Berlioz was the son of
a doctor and was sent to Paris to study medicine, but
studied music instead, first privately and then (as a
somewhat rebellious student) at the conservatory. He is
the greatest musical figure in the French Romantic
movement. The romantic writers Hugo, Dumas, Balzac
etc. were his friends, as were the romantic painters
with Delacroix at their head, and the romantic
musicians, Chopin and Liszt.
The overture
“Les Francs Juges” survives from an opera which
Berlioz began to write in 1826. The libretto, written
for Berlioz by Humbert Ferrand at the beginning
of their lifelong friendship, concerns the fate of a
prisoner who is brought blindfolded before the judges of
the Vehmgerircht, the secret court which
terrorised Germany during the late Middle Ages. (Sir
Walter Scott deals with the subject in his novel
“Anne of Geierstein”: “The ‘Initiated’ or the
‘Wise Men’ were names applied to the celebrated judges
of the Secret Tribunal…The meeting being assembled, a
coil of rope and a naked sword, the well-known signals
and emblems of Vehmique authority were deposited on the
altar. The sword was considered as representing the
blessed emblem of Christian redemption and the cord as
indicating the right of criminal jurisdiction and
capital punishment…Frightful and frequent were the
occurrence of executions by command of these terrible
judges”.)
Berlioz
later abandoned the opera, retaining only the powerful
Overture which begins with an impressive, brooding slow
introduction suggesting the pronouncement of the dreaded
judges and a precursor of the Symphonie Fantastique.
Of special note is the flowing melodic second theme of
the Allegro assai taken from a boyhood
composition, a quintet for flute and strings. Those of
you who have achieved the happy, but rare, state of
advanced years without significant memory loss may
recall that this sparkling tune was used to introduce
the “Face to Face” series of TV interviews by
John Freeman with “victims” such as Gilbert
Harding and Tony Hancock.
This overture and the “Waverley” Overture were
performed for the first time in Paris on May 26th
1818. Berlioz felt a deep affection for “Les Francs
Juges”, included it in his concert programmes whenever
possible and even, with the assistance of Chopin,
provided an arrangement of it for piano duet.
Emily J.
FELDBERG
English
Suite
Emily
Feldberg
is a cello
player in the Northumberland Orchestral Society. Her
“English Suite” was written in 2004 and 2005
specifically for this orchestra. Thanks are also due to
her for this explanatory note about its composition.
“This suite
comprises 3 short movements preceded by a Prologue.
Each section had a strong stimulus but all came from
completely different quarters.
Prologue:
The ‘Fanfare for Life’ is written and dedicated
to our conductor, Jill. It is a thankful celebration for
a return to health after illness and the news of her
‘all clear’.
The Pastoral has a meandering theme which
‘arrived’ while I was returning from an October birthday
walk in gorgeous, glowing sun. It is strongly influenced
by the style of Gerald Finzi (1901-56), whose
luscious harmonies and long lines of interweaving melody
are a pastoral style that I love. I could say the
initial melody and harmonies were inspired by the
breathless stillness you can feel at the dawn of a late
summer day followed by the shade; shafts of light on
rolling hills and continuing agitated movement of small
creatures in the undergrowth. The simple patchwork of
ideas is repeated and embellished before all coming
together in a single swell of warmth.
Giacosa, (The Joke) is a very warm and
affectionate cartoon of the wonderful institution that
is the amateur orchestra. The brass are given their
head, the strings jump and chase each other around and
the wind chatter to each other between ‘soaring
melodies’. It is full of short phrases that are tossed
from one section to another before the brass win out -
and the piece ends with the trombones blowing a
raspberry.
In Conclusion
came about
whilst I was ill with a severe chest infection. During
the long nights of half sleep and half hallucination, I
felt very aware of a sense of the chugging engine of a
ship that Elgar uses in the 13th
‘Enigma’ variation. (Ed. -See reference to
this variation in the programme note on Mendelssohn’s
“Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” Overture). This
feeling of being sustained and eventually guided into
clear water is reflected in the chorale that ends the
piece”.
Ralph
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872 - 1958) England
The
Running Set (1933)
One of the
most successful of English composers, Vaughan Williams
was educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge, with the
Royal College of Music interpolated for two years and
then again added at the end of the period of formal
education. He also studied in Berlin with Max Bruch
and with Ravel in Paris.
In the
early 1890s he began to be very active in the collection
and study of English folk music – not only folk song but
folk dance as well. He was for many years an active and
enthusiastic member of the English Folk Dance Society
and two of his most attractive and popular folk-based
compositions are his
Sea Songs
and an
English Folk
Song Suite
based on folk songs from Somerset.
Running
Set
is a smooth
but exciting square dance that was seen in the
Appalachian mountain region of North America. and
collected by
Cecil Sharp
in 1917. It was led by the Caller to the accompaniment
of American folk tunes.
The
Running Set
is a short, unpretentious piece which Vaughan Williams
“Anglicised” by working a string of lively, traditional
British
folk tunes into a fantasia on jig rhythms.
No prizes
for identifying all the tunes as they speed past! At the
beginning I recognised a local song The Blackleg
Miners – about a strike in 1844 of pitmen in the
Seghill and Seaton Delaval area. Near the end, the
familiar Scottish folk tune Cock o’ the North
presents a strong case for the superior tunefulness of
melodies from “o’er the Border”!
(Jakob
Ludwig) Felix MENDELSSOHN (-BARTHOLDY) (1809 – 1847)
“Calm Sea
and Prosperous Voyage” Overture, Op. 27
Born at
Hamburg in 1809 and died in Leipzig in 1847,
aged 38.
Although the
following paragraph was written 50 years ago, I think it
is still worthy of quotation today:
“Mendelssohn is often sentimental, and sometimes flatly
academic, but he was much too fine a musician ever to
deserve contempt. Even at its most trivial, his music is
beautifully finished – there is never a note too many,
the harmony is always consistent, the transitions are
neat, the sequences logical. Mendelssohn’s music is that
of a truly good and affectionate man; there is in it
none of the violence, the sinister undertones, the
overweening pride, the morbidity and self-pity, which we
have to contend with in almost all music of any
importance, for example, in Liszt and Wagner.
There was in Mendelssohn a transparency of character
which runs like clear water through everything he
wrote.” (The Record Guide 1951 – Sackville-West and
Shawe-Taylor)
The son of a
cultured and prosperous banker, his genius declared
itself early and was quickly recognised. Before he was
15 he had written as many symphonies, as well as an
opera. From 20 to 24 he travelled to see the world,
becoming a great favourite in England.
He was one
of the first composers to write independent concert
overtures (e.g. “Fingal’s Cave”) which are like
miniature symphonic poems. Mendelssohn based “Calm
Sea and Prosperous Voyage” Overture on two poems by
Goethe. The first poem had been made into a song
by Schubert and both of them had been set for
chorus and orchestra by Beethoven.
The overture
consists of two separate sections: a stately and
majestic Adagio based on verses entitled “Calm
Sea” (“Deep calm reigns in the water, The sea
rests motionless”) and then, “The Breeze” (“The
winds are howling…Hurry! Hurry!”)
Tovey
pointed out that the first part of the overture would
have been more appropriately entitled “Becalmed Sea”,
for Mendelssohn suggests the frustration and anxiety
experienced whilst waiting for a fair wind to fill the
sails of the ship. (After about 4 minutes, in the
penultimate bar of this section, the flute hints at the
possible destination of the ship: the South Pacific –
perhaps Bali Hai?)
Then follows
a sprightly Molto Allegro e Vivace depicting the
first stirrings of a fresh breeze, the bustle and
excitement as the ship departs and the lively play of
the waves. Triumphant drums and trumpet fanfares
announce the safe arrival of the sailor at his home
port.
The overture
was composed in 1828. The second section contains a
theme which Elgar later quoted - played by the
clarinet at a poetic, much slower speed - in the
Romanza, (referring to a steam-ship voyage) of his
“Enigma Variations”.
INTERVAL
Jean
(Julius Christian) SIBELIUS (1865 – 1957) Finland
Symphony
No. 5 in E flat, Op. 82 (1915, rev. 1916, 1919)
I.
Tempo molto moderato/Largamente/Allegro moderato/Presto
II.
Andante mosso, quasi allegretto
III.
Allegro molto/Largamente assai
Jean
Sibelius
was born at Tavastehus in Finland in 1865. He
studied at the capital of his country, Helsinki and then
in Berlin and Vienna. When he was 32 the State made him
an annual grant for life, so that he might be free for
composition.
In his music
Sibelius, inspired by strong national feeling,
concentrates his powerful and rather sinister
imagination upon the poetic apprehension of non-human
forces. The austerity of a land of a long, hard winter,
the charm of a land of a short but brilliant summer,
Nature at her most hostile are his fundamental themes,
and he exploits them to the full in his seven
symphonies. These works have survived both adulation and
denigration to stand as one of the greatest legacies in
the history of the genre.
Sibelius
began his 5th Symphony in 1914 and its first
performance took place in Helsinki on December 8th,
1915. That day, a National Holiday in Finland, was the
composer’s 50th birthday.
I.
It is one of the most popular as well as one of the
finest of his symphonies for it is bold and assured, but
the First movement (lasting 14 minutes) presents
an intellectual challenge. It illustrates the composer’s
description of his work as like a river with innumerable
tributaries feeding it before it broadens majestically
and flows into the sea. Although the music is
continuous, there are in fact two movements for the
price of one. About 8 minutes after the start there is a
change of time signature (Tempo moderato becomes
Allegro moderato ma poco a poco stretto) and the
movement concludes with a Scherzo. The symphony
opens with a horn theme which is of vital importance for
it appears in various guises in the course of the music:
the theme of the Scherzo is derived from the horn
tune; and it lies at the basis of the rapid string
passages with which this complex movement comes to an
exciting conclusion.
II.
The relaxed, sunny Second movement, in contrast,
is quite simple. It consists of a set of variations on a
rhythmic bass tune, played in the fifth bar by the
violas and cellos, pizzicato. The flutes add the
necessary harmonic flavour and it is not difficult to
follow the theme through the variations.
III.
The Third movement is one of Sibelius’s grandest
movements. It opens with a kind of moto perpetuo
theme for the strings. This continues for some time,
with some small melodic fragments gradually emerging.
Then comes the tune from the bass of the slow movement –
a long theme presented by the horns and strings. The
moto perpetuo returns and the second theme is
noticeable now and then. The music is moving towards a
climax, which is reached when the second theme is played
by the brass instruments. This is the moment that
musicologist Donald Tovey compared to Thor, the
God of Thunder, swinging his hammer. As the end of the
work approaches, the brass rhythm continues
relentlessly, the writing becomes increasingly
complicated and the “Thor theme” blazes in full glory.
Finally, six immense chords from the full orchestra
crash the symphony to its triumphant conclusion. |
