GUILDFORD
CORPORATION
CONCERTS
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC
VERNON HANDLEY
GUILDFORD PHILHARMONIC ORGHESTRA
Leader: WILLIAM ARMON
ELAINE
BLIGHTON
.
Soprano
.
Conductor
PROTEUS CHOIR
VERNON HANDLEY
THE SEVENTH CONCERT IN
THE
ENTERPRISING
SERIES
SATURDAY,
I13th NOVEMBER
.
1965
CIVIC HALL
Programme
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éd.
ELAINE BLIGHTON
soprano
Elaine Blighton was born in Leeton, New South Wales, and studied at the
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, gaining the D.S.C.M. for singing and the
A.Mus.A. for piano. She won the famous “Sydney Sun Aria” contest and subsequently made numerous radio and television appearances as well as concert
tours singing German lieder, French and Italian songs and operatic arias.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission invited her to tour with the Sydney
Symphony Orchestra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, playing leading
roles in “‘La Traviata,” ‘“‘Susanna’s Secret,” ““The Telephone,” “Une Education Manquée”’ and many other operas. With these orchestras she also performed many oratorios, including ‘‘Messiah,” ““The Seasons,” and the "St.
Matthew Passion.”
Soon after arriving in England she made her debut with the B.B.C. and in
{uly 1962 was acclaimed for her performance in Monteverdi’'s ‘Il Ballo dell’
ngrate” at the Hintlesham Festival. She has sung in concerts, oratorio and
opera all over England, enchanting audiences everywhere with her beautiful
voice and exceptionally expressive singing.
Most recently, she has been seen in the production of “Moses and Aaron”
at Covent Garden and she sang in the opening Concert of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra at the Commonwealth Festival and the Gilbert and Sullivan night of
the Proms., in both cases under the Baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent.
THE PROTEUS CHOIR
The Proteus Choir was formed in 1963 to provide a chorus where young people
could gain experience in choral training. Rehearsal programmes are specially
devised so that members who are at University are able to sing in the choir’s
concerts because they receive an ample number of rehearsals before the University terms begin, and at the end of those terms. The name *“Proteus’’,
chosen by the chorus itself, refers to the Sea God who was able to change
himself into many forms and this was felt to be appropriate to the constantly
changing membership and the tremendous variety of works that the choir
covers. As well as singing large choral works with the Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra, it gives a number of unaccompanied concerts, including carols and
part-songs, as well as religious motets, and last summer visited Dusseldorf,
Duisburg, Cologne and Bonn and made a record of English music for Cologne
Radio. A section of the choir has just completed a recording of the complete
“Midsummer Night's Dream” music of Mendelssohn with the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, for the forthcoming Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production.
Mr. Handley wishes to record his thanks to Miss Mary Rivers, Miss Maureen
gfill and Mr. Kenneth Lank for the help that they have given in training the
oir.
PROGRAMME
Serenade in G
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Moeran
Prologue
Air
Galop
Minuet
Rigadoon
Epilogue
With the exception of his songs, Moeran's music is now neglected. He was
born in 1894 and died tragically in 1950, when he was drowned at Kenmare,
Ireland. He was of Irish extraction, but grew up in Norfolk. A pupil of John
Ireland and influenced by Delius and Vaughan Williams, he was, nevertheless,
an original and fastidious composer. His self criticism meant that his output
was small, but practically every work he wrote is a masterpiece in its own way.
The Serenade, which had its first performance in the Promenade Concerts of
1948, is no exception to this rule.
The six short movements are superbly
contrasted and the Epilogue, which is a compression of the material of the
Prologue, balances the form
Most of Moeran’s orchestral works, the Sym-
phony in G minor, the Sinfonietta, the Violin Concerto and the Cello Concerto,
are predominantly serious in mood, but the Serenade is a light and approach-
able work. It has full-blooded scoring in the Prologue, subtlety in the Air and
Minuet, and high spirits and vulgarity in the Galop and Rigadoon.
The
orchestra is not large, having only two horns, two trumpets, no tuba, no harp
and only one oboe, but there is an impressive array of percussion instruments
and an important side drum part.
The Irish flavour of Moeran’s melodism
comes through in several of the movements and he takes his tilt at pastiche
with great vitality and humour.
Gloria
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Poulenc
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
Laudamus Te
Domine Deus
Domine Fili Unigenite
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
Poulenc’s Gloria, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, was first performed in Boston in 1961. The individual style of Poulenc is clearly apparent
in every movement:
an incisiveness of expression and, at times, stringent har-
mony, which is softened on occasions by a beautiful melodic line, and harmony,
which, if not the same as certain other French composers, certainly derives from
them and not from the music of any other country.
There is no Kyrie and
so the work cannot be called a Mass, but it is complete in itself and, although
the six sections are distinct, there is thematic relationship between several of
them. A jubilant Gloria is followed by an almost irresponsibly gay Laudamus.
After two strong movements, the Domine Deus is solemn and yet lyrical, a fine
contrast. The fourth section is happy, almost innocent, and brief. Section five
is the most profound, with mysterious lines for the soprano solo and deeply felt
interjections and comments from the chorus. The final Qui sedes uses material
of the first section, especially in its fast middle section, but ends with a simple
yet noble passage and, finally, ethereal Amens from chorus and soloist.
INTERVAL
The Tale the Pine Trees Knew
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Bax
This is the last of Bax's great tone poems, written when he had already embarked on his series of symphonies and showing their influence in an intricacy
of inter-relationships which is often denied him by hostile critics.
It was composed in 1931 and uses Bax’s customary
large orchestra: triple woodwind
with four clarinet players, though five difil{erent clarinets are used, and, as well
as a large complement of brass and percussion, two harps and celesta.
These
immense forces are very rarely used for sheer weight, but rather, each has its
individua] characteristics exploited with great understanding.
The work is in one continuous movement and from the very outset two
important
pieces
of material
are put
simultaneously
before
the listener:
a
fragment of tune from the bass clarinet and running semiquavers in uneven
length slurs on the violas.
It is typical of Bax’s remarkable individual style of
development that within these two elements lurk the germs of two further
musical ideas.
In the sixth bar of the bass clarinet tune, the double bassoon
reinforces that instrument in producing an interval which is
to be
important in a later tune, whilst every now and then in the viola semiquavers,
instead of fragments of scales, one beat will be taken up by two notes of the
same pitch, separated by two notes at another pitch, and later this device
becomes an ostinato over which further melodic material appears.
From a
very quiet beginning the moderato gradually gains in power and ferocity as
well as numbers. Only two really new pieces of material appear: a mysterious
melodic fragment, which has ten repeated notes before it plots its full curve
and then, after all the foregoing has been developed, a beautiful tune and its
subsidiaries in a slow middle section.
But even here, in one of the subsidiary
themes, one finds that the shape is made up of repeated notes separated by
other repeated notes at a different pitch.
The lento section melts into the
return of tempo |. The recapitulation of the material so far heard takes place
and works up to a colossal climax, the main theme of which is found to be
fusion of two earlier pieces of melodic material now stated in augmentation.
This powerful and emotional climax is not allowed to go on a bar too long,
and with cruel abruptness we are plunged back into tempo |.
Fragments of
the material so intricately built up are now stated, is if to remind us of the
experiences they had caused, and the relentless repeated notes return us to
the semiquavers with which the violas started the piece.
These semiquavers
are passed to the clarinets and flutes and, finally, the bassoons.
The piece
sounds as if it is going to fade away but, as is in keeping with the strength of
t}fie climax and its uncompromising material, ends with an abrupt sforzando
chord.
Symphonic Metamorphoses on themes of Weber . Hindemith
Allegro
Turandot Scherzo (moderato)
Andantino
March
The abundance of variety to be found in straightforward approachable 20th
century music is clearly understood if one compares the four pieces on to-night’s
programme.
Hindemith’'s Symphonic Metamorphoses is straightforward in
form, optimistic and happy in character, and does not aim at the natural
profundities of the Bax or the religious mysteries of the Poulenc.
It is a
colossal and fine piece of entertainment and was first played in New York in
1944. Hindemith has not used any of the well known themes of Weber. For
the first, third and fourth movements, he uses a set of Weber's Piano Duets,
Opus 60, while for the second movement he uses a theme from Weber’s music
to Gozzi’'s play, Turandot.
The first movement starts with an emphatic tune in A minor, some contrasting material in C major, and a quiet middle section with a beautiful rising
tune on the oboe.
The opening of the movement returns, and it finishes
exultantly.
It is already clear that, although Hindemith admired Weber, his
use of the word Metamorphoses in the title is necessary as well as humorous,
for Weber's themes are becoming twisted in such a way that they take on the
characteristics of Hindemith’s own writing.
The Scherzo is based on the solo flute’s opening notes, the first four of
which are also the first four notes—though separated widely—on the bell.
The climax of this material leads Hindemith to a very naughty fugue to display
the wind, brass and percussion instruments, and after a re-statement of the
first tune, the four percussionists quietly bring the movement to a close. The
Andantino is very simple: a statement of a tune and two sections following
upon it. The clarinet, bassoons and horn share the tune, the next section the
cellos, clarinets and violins, while the third section is a repeat of the first, with
a continuous counterpoint to the melody on a solo flute. This solo is long, covers
a huge range and requires the greatest virtuosity on the part of the player.
The final March, one of the happiest pieces of music in the orchestral
repertoire, illustrates Hindemith’s sense of humour, as some of the material in
eber comes from, of all things, a funeral march.
not a little noise.
It ends exultantly and with