Guildford
Corporation
Director of Music:
Concerts
J. CROSSLEY CLITHEROE
SATURDAY, 14th NOVEMBER, 1959, at 7 p.m.
TECHNICAL COLLEGE, GUILDFORD
FESTIVAL CHOIR
GUILDFORD
MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA
Leader : TATE GILDER
Baritone:
BRYAN DRAKE
*
Conductor: CROSSLEY CLITHEROE
*
PROGRAMME
-
ONE SHILLING
PROGRAMME
Overture, Coriolanus, Op. 62
*
L
Beethoven
It was not for Shakespeare's Coriolanus that Beethoven composed this
overture in
1807, at the age of thirty-seven, but for another play on
the same theme by the Austrian poet, H. ]J. von Collin
(1771-1811).
Nevertheless, as most writers since Wagner have pointed out, if the
third scene of the fifth act of Shakespeare’s great play can be kept in
mind, the listener will have nearly all that he needs by way of background to this intensely eloquent music.
Banished for his lack of sym-
pathy with the starving populace of the Rome he has gallantly defended
in battle, the imperious Coriolanus goes over to the opposing side, the
Volsces, to gain his revenge;
he coldly rejects the appeal of his closest
friend to desist from attacking his own people, but all his resistances are
finally broken down when his mother, wife
with him.
Beethoven
and child come to plead
Thus the first and second subjects in this overture, for which
used traditional
sonata-form, can be said to represent
Coriolanus in his steely pride and the pleading of his family respectively.
Sea-Drift
-
3
:
]
]
.
-
Delius
For Baritone Solo, Chorus and Orchestra
“Sea-Drift’” is a setting of the first poem in Walt Whitman’s collection
bearing this generic title.
It was completed in 1903 and produced three
years later at the festival of the Allgemeiner Deutsche Musikverein at
Essen.
The first English performance took place at the Sheffield Festival
of 1908.
The inspiration of the poem derives from Whitman’s boyhood on
Long Island or, as he calls it, Paumanok, using the old Indian name.
Here, at his family home of West-Hills, within easy reach of the sea, he
spent his adolescence, and the sights and sounds described in the poem
must have been familiar to him from his earliest years.
The form of the music is a continuous web, following closely the
pattern of the poem in its rise and fall of emotion, with few repetitions
of phrase, except where the chorus echoes the words of the soloist and
is pitted against him, or where the voices overlap.
Though it possesses
a homogeneity as consistent as that of Whitman’'s poem, it relies com-
paratively little on formal thematic relationships and allusions.
It is
rather in its complete and single-minded absorption of the poem that it
achieves its unity.
The following shows the ground-plan of the work.
CHORUS
Once Paumanok,
When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-Month grass was
growing,
Up this sea shore in some briers,
Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown.
SoLo AND CHORUS
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent with
bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never
disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
CHORUS
Shine!
Shine!
Shine!
Pour down your warmth, great sun!
While we bask, we two together.
Two together!
Winds blow south or winds blow north,
Day come white, or night come black.
SoLo
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
CHORUS
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.
SoLo
Till of a sudden,
May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,
Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear’d again.
And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, | heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.
CHoRuUS
Blow!
Blow!
Blow!
Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore:
I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.
SoLo
Yes, when the stars glisten’d,
All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,
Down almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.
He call’d on his mate.
He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know,
Yes my brother I know,
The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note,
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the
shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds
and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen’d long and long,
Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,
Following you my brother.
CHORUS
Soothe!
Soothe!
Soothe!
Close on its waves soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind embracing and lapping, everyone
close,
SoLo
But my love soothes not me, not me.
CHORUS
Low hangs the moon, it rose late,
It is lagging—Oh, I think it is heavy with love, with love.
SoLo
Oh madly the sea pushes upon the land,
With love, with love.
Oh night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the
breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?
Loud! Loud! Loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!
High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
Surely you must know who is here, is here,
You must know who I am, my love.
Low-hanging moon:
CHORUS
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon do not keep her from me any longer.
Land!
land!
Oh land!
Whichever way 1 turn, Oh I think you could give me my
mate back again if you only would,
For I am almost sure | see her dimly whichever way I look.
Oh rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with
some of you.
Oh throat! Oh trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth,
Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.
SoLo
Shake out carols!
Solitary here, the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death’s carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
Oh under that moon where she droops almost down into
the seal
Oh reckless despairing carols.
But soft! sink low!
Soft!
let me just murmur,
And do you wait a moment you husky-nois’d sea,
For somewhere | believe | heard my mate responding to me,
So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,
But not altogether still, for then she might not come
immediately to me.
Hither my love!
Here | am! here!
With this just-sustain’d note | announce myself to you,
This gentle call is for you my love, for you,
CHORUS
Do not be decoy’d elsewhere,
That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,
Those are the shadows of leaves.
SoLo AND CHORUS
Oh darkness!
Oh in vain!
Oh I am very sick and sorrowful.
SoLo
Oh brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon
the seal
Oh troubled reflection in the sea!
Oh throat! Oh throbbing heart!
And | sing uselessly, uselessly all the night.
Oh past! Oh happy life! Oh songs of joy!
In the air, in the woods, over fields,
Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved!
Loved!
But my mate no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.
Symphony No. 2 in B flat
T
i
Schubert
Largo—Allegro Vivace
Andante
Menuetto:
allegro vivace
Presto vivace
Schubert’s Symphony No.
finished in March
2
which
he began
in
December
1814
and
1815 shows how greatly he had developed as a com-
poser since the completion of his first symphony.
is not now so much under the influence
contemporaries—Haydn, Mozart,
He clearly shows he
of his great predecessors and
and Beethoven.
tioned work full of fresh melodic ideas.
It is a well propor-
Each of its four movements
is based on charming melodies and if there is not the profundity of his
later works there is clearly evident the mastery of the symphonist’s craft
in the orchestral treatment of the basic material.
A happy symphony
indeed.
INTERVAL
Serenade to Music
.
:
.
Vaughan Williams
Composed for and dedicated to Sir Henry J. Wood on the
occasion
of his Jubilee, in grateful recognition of his
services to music, this Serenade was performed for the
first time on October 5th, 1938.
“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: Soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb that thou behold’st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in we cannot hear it.
Come, ho!
and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,
And draw her home with music.
I am never merry when | hear sweet music.
The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov’'d with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus;
Let no such man be trusted.
Music!
Hark!
It is the music of the house.
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day,
Silence bestows that virtue on it,
How many things by season seasoned are
To their rght phrase and true perfection!
Peace, ho!
The moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awak’d!
Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.”
The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene I.
Songs with Orchestra
a)
Songs of Hiems and Ver
b)
It was a lover and his lass |
Psalm (48
"
:
b
:
|
.
.
Gerald Finzi
Gustav Holst
METHODIST CHURCH HALL
Saturday, 2Ist November
.
.
.
.
7.30 p.m.
THE OPERA PLAYERS
RITA or THE BEATER BEATEN
Donizetti
Sparkling Italian Music and Situations
PEPITO
O_flenbacb
Pastoral comedy with lovely melodies
(In association with the Guildford Concertgoers’ Society)
ODEON THEATRE
Sunday, 29th November . 2.30 p.m.
Overture ‘Fingal’s Cave
Mendelssohn
Pianoforte Concerto No. 23
in A major K. 488
Mozart
Symphony No. 4 in B flat
Beethoven
MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA
FOU TS’ONG
TECHNICAL COLLEGE
Saturday, 12th December . 7 p.m.
HANDEL’S
‘MESSIAH’
Soprano
THELMA GODFREY
Contralto
Tenor
JEAN GRAYSTON
EDGAR FLEET
Bass
KENNETH JONES
MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA
FESTIVAL CHOIR
MONDAY, I6th NOVEMBER
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THEATRE
THE HAPPY MAN
A Comedy by HUGH and MARGARET WILLIAMS
MONDAY, 23rd NOVEMBER
OTHELLO
By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(Special Times of Performance)