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vivacechorus.org
GRuoiyldaforG am arScho l
~ Vivace
Chorus
e
Five choral songs
George Gershwin
Four pieces for piano
Mayerl, Bolcom,
Gershwin (arr. Pott)
Confrey
Chichester Psalms
Leonard Bernstein
Facade — An Entertainment William Walton
(excerpts)
The Rio Grande
Constant Lambert
Hamish Klintworth
Treble
Angharad Lyddon
Contralto
Lancelot Nomura
Reciter
Francis Pott
Piano
Brandenburg Sinfonia
Conductor: Jeremy Backhouse
PRE-CONCERT TALKS
| Before Vivace Chorus concerts, we offer ticket holders a free talk given
| by an acknowledged music expert who has a special interest in the §
| works to be performed.
| We are grateful to Terry Barfoot for giving this evening’s pre-concert talk §
in the G Live auditorium. Terry is a well-known figure in the musical life of §
| southern England, who has for many years given presentations at music §
| clubs and festivals throughout the country. He has lectured, for example, §
at Oxford University, the British Library, the Austrian Cultural Forum, §
| Opera Holland Park, the Royal Opera House and the Three Choirs §
| Festival, and has written widely about music and opera. Tonight he §
| introduces Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Constant §
| Lambert's The Rio Grande.
P
2
LT
222
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The Armed Man, November 2013
"Last Saturday was a completely new experience for
me. We had the so very moving words you were singing
/
A~ in front of us. This coupled with the very imaginative
@j orchestration suitably reinforced by the powerful
=
statements from the organ resulted in an incredibly
$W " gripping and moving but very beautiful choral
@/i
performance. Well done - I shall never forget it”
"An amazing vocal and musical experience touching deep
emotions”
"The Armed Man was sung with total commitment and
feeling. I found it very moving"
Flash photography, audio and video recording are not permitted
without the prior written consent of the Vivace Chorus. Please also
kindly switch off all mobile phones and alarms on digital watches.
2
Vivace Chorus
This evening’s concert
Five songs by George Gershwin
Fascinatin’ Rhythm (arr. Antony Saunders)
Our Love is Here to Stay (arr. Ken Naylor)
‘S Wonderful (arr. David Blackwell)
Rialto Ripples (with Will Donaldson, arr. David Dusing)
| Got Rhythm (arr. Christopher Clapham)
Four pieces for piano - Soloist: Francis Pott
Marigold
Billy Mayerl
The Poltergeist
William Bolcom
For You, For Me, For Evermore
George Gershwin (arr. Pott)
Kitten on the Keys
Edward Elzear (‘Zez’) Confrey
Chichester Psalms
Leonard Bernstein
- Interval -
Facade — An Entertainment (excerpts)
William Walton
The Rio Grande
Constant Lambert
George Gershwin 1898 — 1937
Of Russian Jewish heritage, George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn,
New York. He and his elder brother Ira grew up around the local Yiddish
theatres, but it was not until he was ten that George was suddenly
captivated by music, after hearing a friend playing the violin.
Gershwin subsequently studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and
Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. He began his
composition with
career as a song plugger, (a player employed by music stores and song
publishers in the early 20th century to promote new sheet music) but
soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira. In
Vivace Chorus
3
1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in
Blue, for orchestra and piano. It proved to be his most popular work.
After a spell in Paris, where he wrote An American in Paris, he returned
to New York. Perhaps the most ambitious of his many well-known
compositions was Porgy and Bess, written in 1935 with Ira and the
author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is
now considered one of the most important American operas of the
20th century. Gershwin eventually moved to Hollywood and composed
numerous film scores until his death from a brain tumour in 1937.
Many of Gershwin's compositions, which spanned both popular and
classical genres, have been adapted for use in films and for television,
and several became stalwarts of the jazz performer’s repertoire, known
as ‘jazz standards’.
Some of the Gershwin brothers’ most well-known collaborations are
performed tonight, all a capella except ‘S Wonderful, which has piano
accompaniment.
The toe-tapping Fascinatin’ Rhythm was first introduced by Cliff
Edwards, Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire in the Broadway musical
Lady, Be Good in 1924.
Our Love is Here to Stay, ajazz standard, was written for the
movie The Goldwyn Follies (1938) which was released shortly after
George’s death. It also appeared, perhaps most memorably, in the
1951 MGM movie An American in Paris, for which it served as the main
theme.
'S Wonderful first appeared in Gershwin’s Broadway musical Funny
Face (1927) which starred Fred and Adele Astaire, who sang the number
with Allen Kearns.
Gershwin composed the piano rag Rialto Ripples when he was only 17.
Written in cooperation with his friend Will Donaldson, it is performed
tonight in an a capella choral scat arrangement by David Dusing.
Between the repeated ‘badlee doobe doowa’ and ‘badada dot dot da da’
you may discern the occasional real words, but it is hard to ascribe any
particular meaning to their inclusion!
Another tune to become a jazz standard, I Got Rhythm was published in
1930. Its chord progression, known as the ‘rhythm changes’, is the
foundation for many other popular jazz tunes such as Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie's bebop-style Anthropology (Thrivin' From a Riff).
4
Vivace Chorus
Fascinatin’ Rhythm
Got a little rhythm, a rhythm, a rhythm
That pit-a-pats through my brain;
So darn persistent,
The day isn't distant
When it'll drive me insane.
Comes in the morning
Without any warning,
And hangs around all day.
Il have to sneak up to it
Someday, and speak up to it.
I hope it listens when | say:
Fascinatin’ Rhythm,
You've got me on the go!
Fascinatin’ Rhythm,
I'm all a-quiver.
What a mess you're making!
The neighbours want to know
Why I'm always shaking
| know that
Once it didn't matter -But now you're doing wrong;
When you start to patter
I'm so unhappy.
Won't you take a day off?
Decide to run along
Somewhere far away off -And make it snappy!
Oh, how | long to be the one | used to be!
Fascinatin’ Rhythm,
Oh, won't you stop picking on me?
At the breakfast table it sounds like a Babel
that sets itself to a rhyme.
While at my dinner I'm sure getting thinner
Thro' masticating ragtime.
When teacups clatter
And girls start to chatter,
Just like a flivver.
The rhythm'’s there all right.
Each morning | get up with the sun -
Why, when in bed believe me
Start a-hopping,
Never stopping -
To find at night no work has been done.
The thing will never leave me.
As soon as | blow out the light:
Fascinatin’ Rhythm...
Our Love Is Here To Stay
It's very clear
Our love is here to stay,
Not for a year
But, oh! my dear
Our love is here to stay,
Together we're going a long, long way.
But ever and a day
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies
And in time they go.
In time the Rockies may crumble
Gibraltar may tumble
They're only made of clay
But our love is here to stay.
‘S Wonderful
'S wonderful, 's marvellous
You should care for me
'S awful nice, 's paradise
Oh, 's wonderful, 's marvellous
That you should care for me.
My dear, it's four-leaf clover time
'S what | love to see.
From now on my heart's workin' overtime
You've made my life so glamorous
'S wonderful, 's marvelous
You can't blame me for feeling amorous,
Vivace Chorus
That you should care for me.
| Got Rhythm
Ol' Man Trouble,
| got rhythm
| don't mind him.
| got music
You won't find him
| got my man
‘Round my door.
Who could ask for anything more ?
| got starlight,
| got daisies
| got sweet dreams,
In green pastures,
| got my man/girl,
| got my man
Who could ask for anything more ?
Who could ask for anything more ?
Who could ask for anything more ?
Four pieces for piano — Soloist: Francis Pott
Marigold
Billy Mayerl (1902-1959)
Mayerl was eventually to become known as ‘The British Gershwin’, and
was soloist when the immortal Rhapsody in Blue was first heard in this
country (with Gershwin in the audience); but the sobriquet does both
composers a disservice. A true musical all-rounder, Mayerl achieved
fame with the Savoy Havana Band and, during the War, as musical
director at Grosvenor House, Park Lane. With its gentle whiff of fourthsbased Chinoiserie and its easy-going charm, Marigold was an instant
best-seller and became Mayerl’'s unofficial signature tune for the rest of
his life. His premature death robbed the musical world of one of its most
popular and unassuming ambassadors.
The Poltergeist — Rag Fantasy (1971)
William Bolcom (b.1938)
Bolcom is a maverick of the best kind among US composers. Refusal to
separate popular idioms from classical ones has led him (among other
things) to enlarge on the possibilities of ragtime, adding a modernism
which mischievously undermines the Scott Joplin-derived, po-faced
decorum of the proceedings.
The Poltergeist evokes not intimidation of residents while they are at
home, but an altogether more streetwise visitant who waits till they go
out, then helps him[?]self liberally to the Bourbon before moving on to
the crockery — and the piano. The music is punctuated midway by inane
cackling and a curious feature called ‘stop time’, where a passage is
repeated with silent rhythmic holes in it. Members of the audience
detecting ectoplasmic disturbance in their vicinity are politely requested
to stifle vocal reaction until the whole ordeal is at an end.
6
Vivace Chorus
For You, for Me, for Evermore
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Gershwin was the ultimate party animal, magnetically drawn to any
piano and exerting a similar effect of his own on any gathering. But
success meant Hollywood, where he missed his friends and longed for
New York. Alas, it was not to be: in 1937 his robust health gave way to
dizzy spells and headaches, and eventually an emergency operation
revealed a cerebral tumour. Only months earlier he had written to Mabel
Schirmer, “I am welcoming 1937... Perhaps, dear Mabel, this is our year.
A year that will see both of us finding that elusive something that seems
to bring happiness... So lift your glass high with me and drink a toast to
two nice people who will go places this year”. His very last song was Our
Love is Here to Stay, featured elsewhere in this programme. For You, for
Me, for Evermore appeared posthumously. Its apparently sanguine lyric
(by Gershwin’s brother Ira) contains the unwittingly poignant line 'm
yours, you're mine, and in our hearts / the happy ending starts’. The
music seems to carry some wistful presentiment of its own, in gentle rebuttal of the lyrics. | was prompted to make a free piano arrangement
of this little-known number for the present occasion. It is dedicated to my
friend Jack Gibbons, Gershwin’'s foremost advocate in the UK, whose
1994 recording of the unadorned original first made me aware of its
existence.
Kitten on the Keys (1921)
Edward Elzear ['Zez’] Confrey (1895-1971)
Zez Confrey was born in lllinois. After World War | he worked as a
pianist and arranger for the QRS piano roll company. Kitten on the Keys
was inspired by a stay at his grandmother's house during which he
heard her cat walk along the piano (some walk! - perhaps, like Bolcom’s
Poltergeist, it had been at her Bourbon). This became his greatest hit
along with Dizzy Fingers (1923). On one occasion my good friend, the
French-Canadian
launched
into
virtuoso
Kitten as
an
Marc-André
Hamelin,
encore at double speed,
spontaneously
conjuring the
interesting possibility that Confrey’s granny owned a sabre-toothed tiger.
Following Marc’s example is high-risk, but more fun...
© Francis Pott
Vivace Chorus
7
CHICHESTER PSALMS Leonard Bernstein (1918 — 1990)
The Chichester Psalms were commissioned by the Dean of Chichester,
the Very Reverend Walter Hussey, an extraordinary man of penetrating
vision and sensitivity. However, the world premiere took place not in
Chichester but in New York, on 14th July 1965, when the composer
conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Westminster
Choir.
Leonard Bernstein was one of the great musicians of the 20th century,
as composer, conductor, pianist, writer and communicator. From the time
of his debuts in the 1940s as composer and conductor, he remained at
the forefront of international musical life. As his music becomes better
known so his range of expression becomes more clear, and his
achievement as a creative artist can be confirmed for both its
significance and its lasting value.
The Chichester Psalms ranks as one of Bernstein’s finest achievements.
The opening chorale of Psalm 108 creates a compelling atmosphere,
releasing the joyful, dance-like setting of Psalm 100 in a lively and
distinctive 7/4 metre. This is 'an exhortation to make a joyful noise unto
the Lord', abounding in pulsating energy but at the same time full of
subtleties in the handling of the complex choral-orchestral forces.
A lyrical, slow-moving solo (Psalm 23) by a boy alto, accompanied by the
harp, begins the second movement. This music is repeated by the high
voices of the chorus, but the mood is suddenly disturbed by a fierce
outburst from the men (the text taken from Psalm 2). The violence
subsides, but it does not altogether disappear, as, above, the women
resume Psalm 23 'blissfully unaware of the threat'. There follows a purely
orchestral meditation, which leads directly into the finale, whose
consoling song adopts a flowing 10/4 metre (Psalm 131). The work ends
with an a capella version of the chorale, a coda of yearning for peace
(from Psalm 133), a vision which was always hugely important to
Bernstein, as indeed it should be for us all.
© Terry Barfoot
|. Psalms 108 & 100 Maestoso ma energetico - Allegro molto
Il Psalms 23 & 2 Andante con moto, ma tranquillo - Allegro feroce
Il Psalms 131 & 133 Prelude - Sostenuto molto - Peacefully flowing
8
Vivace Chorus
Part | Psalm 108, verse 2
Urah, hanevel, v'chinor!
Awake, psaltery and harp!
A-irah shahar!
| will rouse the dawn!
Psalm 100
Hariu I'Adonai kol haarets.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.
Iv'du et Adonai b'simha.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Bo-u I'fanav bir'nanah.
Come before his presence with singing.
D'u ki Adonai Hu Elohim.
Know ye that the Lord, He is God.
Hu asanu, v'lo anahnu.
Amo v'tson mar'ito.
ourselves
It is He that hath made us, and not we
We are His people and the sheep of His
pasture.
Bo-u sh'arav b'todah,
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
Hatseirotav bit'hilah,
And into His courts with praise.
Hodu lo, bar'chu sh'mo.
Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
Ki tov Adonai, I'olam has'do,
For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting.
V'ad dor vador emunato.
And His truth endureth to all generations.
Part Il Psalm 23
Adonai ro-i, lo ehsar.
The Lord is my shepherd, | shall not want.
Bin'ot deshe yarbitseini,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
Al mei m'nuhot y'nahaleini,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
Naf'shi y'shovev,
He restoreth my soul,
Yan'heini b'ma‘aglei tsedek,
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness,
L'ma’'an sh’'mo.
For His name's sake.
Gam ki eilech
Yea, though | walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
B'gei tsalmavet,
Loira ra,
| will fear no evil,
Ki Atah imadi.
For Thou art with me.
Shiv'tcha umishan'techa
Thy rod and Thy staff
Hemah y'nahamuni.
They comfort me.
Ta'aroch I'fanai shulchan
Thou preparest a table before me
Neged tsor'rai
In the presence of mine enemies,
Dishanta vashemen roshi
Thou anointest my head with oil,
Cosi r'vayah.
My cup runneth over.
Ach tov vahesed
Yird'funi kol y'mei hayai
Surely goodness and mercy
Shall follow me all the days of my life,
V'shav'ti b'veit Adonai
And | will dwell in the house of the Lord
L'orech yamim.
Forever.
Vivace Chorus
Psalm 2, verses 1-4
Lamah rag'shu goyim
Why do the nations rage,
Ul'umim yeh'qu rik?
Yit'yats'vu malchei erets,
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the people imagine a vain thing.
V'roznim nos'du yahad
And the rulers take counsel together
Al Adonai v'al m'shiho.
Against the Lord and against His anointed.
N'natkah et mos'roteimo,
Saying, let us break their bonds asunder,
V’'nashlichah mimenu
He that sitteth in the heavens
avoteimo.
Shall laugh, and the Lord
Shall have them in derision!
Yoshev bashamayim
Yis'hak, Adonai
Yil'ag lamo!
Part lll Psalm 131
Adonai, Adonai,
Lord, Lord,
Lo gavah libi,
V'lo ramu einai,
My heart is not haughty,
V'lo hilachti
Neither do | exercise myself
Nor mine eyes lofty,
Big'dolot uv'niflaot
In great matters or in things
Mimeni.
Too wonderful for me to understand.
Im lo shiviti
Surely | have calmed
V'domam'ti,
Naf’shi k'gamul alei imo,
And quieted myself,
Kagamul alai nafshi.
Yahel Yis'rael el Adonai
My soul is even as a weaned child.
Me'atah v'ad olam.
As a child that is weaned of his mother,
Let Israel hope in the Lord
From henceforth and forever.
Psalm 133, verse 1
Hineh mah tov,
Behold how good,
Umah naim,
And how pleasant it is,
Shevet ahim
For brethren to dwell
Gam yahad.
Together in unity.
Some of the printed music for this evening's concert has been hired from
SCC Performing Arts Library, Oxford University Press Music Hire Library, Boosey &
Hawkes Music Hire Library
and Yorkshire Music Library.
~ Interval ~
10
Vivace Chorus
Sir William Turner Walton OM (1902 — 1983)
During his sixty-year career, Walton wrote music in several classical
genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works
include the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto, and the First
Symphony, as well as the more unusual Fagade, excerpts of which are
performed this evening.
Born in Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and
then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. At Oxford Walton
befriended several poets including Siegfried Sassoon and, most
importantly for his future, Sacheverell Sitwell (who, incidentally, wrote the
poem The Rio Grande, see p19). Walton was sent down from Oxford in
1920 without a degree and Sitwell invited him to lodge in London with
him and his literary brother and sister, Osbert and Edith. Walton took up
residence in the attic of their house, later recalling, "I went for a few
weeks and stayed about fifteen years". Fagade, his earliest work of note,
was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, which at first brought him notoriety
as a modernist, and later became a ballet score.
In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife on
the ltalian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as
a modernist, and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised
as old-fashioned. His only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida, was
among the works to be so labelled and has made little impact in opera
houses. In his last years, his works came back into critical fashion; his
later compositions, dismissed by critics at the time of their premieres,
were revalued and regarded alongside his earlier works.
Facade
In 1923, in collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Walton had his first great
success, though at first it was a succés de scandale. Fagade, first
performed in public at the Aeolian Hall, London, consisted of Edith's
verses, which she recited through a megaphone from behind a screen,
while Walton conducted a small ensemble of players in his
accompanying music. The press was generally condemnatory: the Daily
Express loathed the work, but admitted that it was naggingly memorable
and the Manchester Guardian wrote of relentless cacophony. (Even the
players did not like the work: the clarinettist apparently asked the
composer, "Mr Walton, has a clarinet player ever done you an injury?")
However, the work soon became accepted, and within a decade
Walton's music was used for the popular Fagade ballet, choreographed
by Frederick Ashton.
Vivace Chorus
11
The Fagade verses are studies in sound and rhythm, but there is also
meaning in Sitwell's poems. Some writers have detected personal
references in the poems, such as the kind Mariner Man, thought to be
her father's valet who entertained her with seafaring stories.
The lllustrated London News was much more appreciative of that first
performance: "The audience was at first inclined to treat the whole thing
as an absurd joke, but there is always a surprisingly serious element in
Miss Sitwell's poetry and Mr Walton's music ... which soon induced the
audience to listen with breathless attention." — as we hope you do too!
Fanfare - Instrumental
1 Hornpipe
Sailors come
Captain Fracasse stout as any water-butt came,
To the drum
stood
Out of Babylon;
With Sir Bacchus both a-drinking the black tarr'd
Hobby horses
grapes’ blood
Foam, the dumb
Plucked among the tartan leafage
Sky rhinoceros glum
By the furry wind whose grief age
Watched the courses of the breakers’ rocking-
Could not wither like a squirrel with a gold star-
horses and with Glaucis,
nut.
Lady Venus on the settee of the horse-hair sea!
Queen Victoria sitting shocked upon the rocking
Where Lord Tennyson in laurels wrote a gloria
horse
free,
Of a wave said to the Laureate,
In a borealic iceberg came Victoria; she
‘This minx of course
Knew Prince Albert’s tall memorial took the
Is as sharp as any lynx and blacker — deeper
colours of the floreal
than the drinks and quite as
And the borealic iceberg; floating on they see
Hot as any hottentot, without remorse!
New arisen Madam Venus for whose sake from
For the minx,’
far
Said she,
Came
the
fat
and
zebra'd
emperor
from
‘And the drinks,
Zanzibar
You can see
Where like golden bouquets lay far Asia, Africa,
Are hot as any hottentot and not the goods for
Cathay,
me!'
All laid before that shady lady by the fibroid
Shah.
continues A
3 Mariner Man
Running half the way over to Babylon, down
‘What are you staring at, mariner man
Through fields of clover to gay Troy Town—
Winkled as sea-sand and old as the sea?’
‘Those trains will run over their tails, if they can,
Snorting and sporting like porpoises. Flee____
The burly, the whirligig wheels of the train,
As round as the world and as large again,
12
2
A-puffing their smoke as grey as the curl
On my forehead as wrinkled as sands of the
seal —
But what can that matter to you, my girl?
(And what can that matter to me?)’
Vivace Chorus
6 Tango-Pasodoblé
‘With your luggage, though heavy and large;
When Don Pasquito arrived at the seaside
You must follow and leave your moping
Where the donkey'’s hide tide brayed, he
Bride to my guidance and charge!’
Saw the bandito Jo in a black cape
When Don Pasquito returned from the road’s
Whose slack shape waved like the sea—
end,
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat is silver like
Where vanilla coloured ladies ride
the sea; the lovely cheat is sweet as foam
From Sevilla, his mantilla'd bride and young
Erotis notices that she
friend
Will Steal The Wheat-king's luggage, like Babel
Were forgetting their mentor and guide.
Before the League of Nations grew—
For the lady and her friend from Le Touquet
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the very shady trees upon the sand
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of foam, while the sand’s brassy band
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Blared in the wind. Don Pasquito
Carrying__ the load and goading the road
Hid where the leaves drip with sweet...
Through the marine scene to the sea.
But a word stung him like a mosquito...
‘Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
2
For what they hear, they repeat!
7 Lullaby for Jumbo
Jumbo asleep! Grey leaves thick-furred
As his ears, keep conversations blurred.
What is it grieves
In the torrid day?
In it the animal
Thicker than hide
World that snores
Is the trumpeting water;
Don Pasquito’s bride
Harsh and inimical
In sleepy pores?—
And his youngest daughter
And why should the spined flowers
Watch the leaves
Red as a soldier
Elephantine grey:
2
Make Don Pasquito seem still mouldier?
9 Tarantella
Where the satyrs are chattering, nymphs with their flattering glimpse of the forest enhance
All the beauty of marrow and cucumber narrow and Ceres will join in the dance.
Where the satyrs can flatter the flat-leaved fruit and the gherkin green and the marrow,
Said Queen Venus, ‘Silenus, we'll settle between us the gourd and the cucumber narrow’.
See, like palaces hid in the lake, they shake— those greenhouses shot by her arrow narrow!
The gardener seizes the pieces, like Croesus, for gilding the potting shed barrow.
There the radish roots and the strawberry fruits feel the nymphs’ high boots in the glade.
Trampling and sampling mazurkas, cachucas and turkas, Cracoviaks hid in the shade.
Where, in the haycocks, the country nymphs’ gay flocks wear gowns that are looped over bright
yellow petticoats,
Gaiters of leather and pheasants’ tail feathers in straw hats bewildering many a leather bat.
There they hay-make, cowers and whines in showers, the dew in the dog-skin bright flowers;
Pumpkin and marrow and cucumber narrow have grown through the spangled June hours.
Melons as dark as caves have for their fountain waves thickest gold honey, and wrinkled as dark as
Pan,
Vivace Chorus
-
13
Or old Silenus, yet youthful as Venus, are gourds and the wrinkled figs whence all the jewels ran.
Said Queen Venus, ‘Silenus we'll settle between us the nymphs’ disobedience, forestall
With my bow and my quiver each fresh evil liver: for | don't understand it at all’
12 Country Dance
As it neighed, | said,
That hobnailed goblin, the bobtailed Hob,
‘Don't touch me, sir, don't touch me, | say,
Said, ‘It is time | began to rob’,
You'll tumble my strawberries into the hay.’
For strawberries bob, hobnob with the pearls
Those snow-mounds of silver that bee, the
Of cream (like the curls of the dairy girls),
spring,
And flushed with the heat and fruitish ripe
Has sucked his sweetness from,
Are the gowns of the maids who dance to the
| will bring
pipe.
With fair-haired plants and with apples chill
Chase a maid?
For the great god Pan’s high altar...
She’s afraid!
I'll spill
‘Go gather a bobcherry kiss from a tree,
Not one!’
But don't, | prithee, come bothering me!’
So, in fun,
She said—
We rolled on the grass and began to run
As she fled.
Chasing that gaudy satyr the Sun;
The snouted satyrs drink clouted cream
Over the haycocks, a way we ran
‘Neath the chestnut trees as thick as a dream;
Crying, ‘Here be berries as sun-burnt as Pan!’
So | went,
But Silenus
And leant,
Has seen us...
Where none but the doltish coltish wind
Nuzzled my hand for what it could find.
He runs like the rough satyr Sun.
2
Come away!
13 Polka
And bright as a seeds-man'’s packet
Tralalalalalalalalal—
With zinnias, candytufts chill,
See me dance the polka,’
Is Mrs.__ Marigold’s jacket
Said Mister Wagg like a bear,
As she gapes at the inn door still,
‘With my top hat
Where at dawn in the box of the sailor,
And my whiskers that—
Blue as the decks of the sea,
(Trala la la) trap the Fair.
Nelson awoke, crowed like the cocks,
Where the waves seem chiming haycocks |
Then back to the dust sank he.
dance the polka; there
And Robinson Crusoe
Stand Venus' children in their gay frocks,—
Rues so
Maroon and marine, — and stare
The bright and foxy beer,—
To see me fire my pistol
But he finds fresh isles in a negress’ smiles,—
Through the distance blue as my coat;
The poxy doxy dear,
Like Wellington, Byron, the Marquis of Bristol,
As they watch me dance the polka’,
Buzbied great trees float.
Said Mister Wagg like a bear,
While the wheezing hurdy-gurdy
‘In my top hat and my whiskers that,—
Of the marine wind blows me
Tra la la la, trap the Fair.
To the tune of “Annie Rooney”, study
Tralalalalala— Tralalalalala—
Over the sheafs of the sea;
Tralalalalalalalalalalal
14
2
Vivace Chorus
16 Valse
‘Daisy and Lily,
Wood-nymphs wear bonnets, shawls,
Lazy and silly,
Elegant parasols
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,—
Floating are seen.
Talking once more ‘neath a swan bosomed tree.
The Amazons wear balzarine of jonquille
Rose castles,
Beside the blond lace of a deep falling rill;
Tourelles,
Through glades like a nun
Those bustles
They run from and shun
Where swells
The enormous and gold-rayed rustling sun;
Each foam-bell of ermine,
And the nymphs of the fountains
They roam and determine
Descend from the mountains
What fashions have been and what fashions will
Like elegant willows
be,—
On their deep barouche pillows,
What tartan leaves born,
In cashmere Alvandar, barege Isabelle,
What crinolines worn.
Like bells of bright water from clearest wood —
well.
By Queen Thetis,
Our élégantes favouring bonnets of blond,
Pelisses
The stars in their apiaries,
Of tarlatine blue,
Sylphs in their aviaries,
Like the think plaided leaves that the castle
Seeing them, spangle these, and the sylphs
crags grew,
fond
Or velours d’Afrande:
From their aviaries fanned
On the water gods’ land
With each long fluid hand
Her hair seemed gold trees on the honey-cell
The manteaux espagnols,
sand
Mimic the waterfalls
When the thickest gold spangles, on deep water
Over the long and the light summerland.
seen,
Were
like
twanging
guitar
and
like
cold
Daisy and Lily,
mandoline,
Lazy and silly,
And the nymphs of great caves,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,
With hair like gold waves,
Talking once more 'neath a swan bosomed tree.
Of Venus, wore tarlatine.
Rose castles,
Louise and Charlottine
Tourelles,
(Boreas’ daughters)
Those bustles!
And the nymphs of deep waters,
Mourelles
The nymph Taglioni, Grisi the ondine,
Of the shade in their train follow.
Wear plaided Victoria and thin Clementine
Ladies, how vain,—
Like the crinolined water falls;
Gone is the sweet swallow,—
/
Vivace Chorus
hollow,—
Gone, Philomel!’
15
17 Jodelling Song
Still the sweet bird begs
‘We bear velvet cream,
And tries to cozen
Green and babyish
Them: “Buy angels’ eggs
Small leaves seem; each stream
Sold by the dozen.”
Horses'’ tails that swish,
And the chimes remind
Gone are the clouds like inns
Us of sweet birds singing,
On the gardens’ brinks,
Like the jangling bells
And the mountain djinns,—
On rose trees ringing
Ganymede sells drinks;
Man must say farewells
While the days seem grey,
To parents now,
And his heart of ice,
And to William Tell
Gray as chamois, or
And Mrs. Cow.
The edelweiss,
Man must say farewells
And the mountain streams
To storks and Bettes,
Like cow-bells sound —
And to roses’ bells,
Tirra lira, drowned
And statuettes.
In the waiter's dreams
Forests white and black
Who has gone beyond
In spring are blue
The forest waves,
With forget-me-nots,
And to lovers true
While his true and fond
2
Ones seek their graves.’
18 Scotch Rhapsody
‘Do not take a bath in Jordan, Gordon,
Haunted by ghostly poor Relations
On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day"
Of Bostonian conversations
Said the huntsman, playing on his old bagpipe,
(Like Bagpipes rotting through the walls.)
Boring to death the pheasant and the snipe —
And there the pearl-ropes fall like shawls
Boring the ptarmigan and grouse for fun —
With a noise like marine waterfalls.
Boring them worse than a nine-bore gun.
And ‘Another little drink wouldn't do us any
Till the flaxen leaves where the prunes are ripe,
harm’
Heard the tartan wind a-droning in the pipe,
Pierces through the Sabbatical calm.
And they heard MacPherson say: *
And that is the place for me!
‘Where do the waves go? What hotels
So do not take a bath in Jordan Gordon,
Hide their bustles and their gay ombrelles?
On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day —
And would there be room? —
Or
Would there be room?
MacPherson,
Would there be room for me?’
And speaking purely as a private person
you'll
never
go
to
heaven,
Gordon
That is the place— that is the place—
There is a hotel at Ostend
Cold as the wind, without an end,
16
That is the place for me!
A
Vivace Chorus
Rock Choir
Sunday
23" March
Rock Choir, the phenomenon of the decade, opens the 2014 Festival with
three performances from 4pm to 8pm
The refreshment bar will be open for food and drink
Jazz Lunch
Monday
24" March
The Will Todd Ensemble
Jimmy Hastings and his Quartet
Jazz of
a different kind
7.30pm
12.30pm - 2pm
Sponsored by A | Bennewith & Co
Sponsored by Bar des Arts
St Catherine’s School Musicians
Surrey University Big Band
Outstanding performers from
Tuesday
25" March
An exciting evening from this multi-platinum
one of our top schools
award winning 21| piece big band
1.00pm
7.30pm
Sponsored by Charles Russell
Maureen Galea
Wednesday
26" March
Albany Piano Trio
Mozart, Chaminade and Beethoven
well-known local pianist with international reputation
7.30pm
1.00pm
Associated Board
Thursday
27" March
One Soprano and Two Pianists
High Scorers' Concert
Alla Kravchuk, recently principal of the Hanover Opera,
A concert by some of the best candidates from the Guildford
area who achieved high marks in the recent music exams of the
Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM)
will present an evening of song with well-known GSMF
regulars Simon Phillips and Steven Ridge
7.30pm
1.00pm
Jennifer Janse (cello)
Friday
28" March
Saturday
29" March
Richard Smith (harpsichord)
Michael Collins
The GSMF President and world famous instrumentalist will
present a programme of music for clarinet and piano
Including sonatas by Gabrieli, Telemann and Vivaldi
7.30pm
1.00pm
Sponsored by Barlow Robbins LLP
Ann Murray DBE
Surrey Mozart Players
The past President of GSMF will pass on her world wide
experience as a leading mezzo-soprano to a group of solo
singers in a workshop/master class setting.
10.15 am to 2.00 pm
The Guildford Rotary Schools Concert
The Gala Concert
with former RGS student Emmanuel Bach
Rossini, Paganini Violin Conc No. |, Brahms
7.30pm
Sponsored by Hamptons International
20" March 2014
7.15pm at GLive
Four Guildford schools will be taking part with up to 500 pupils from George Abbot, St Peters, Tormead and Duke of Kent schools.
The choirs, groups and soloists will present a wide variety of music from the classical, jazz to modern day pop music
Tickets - £12 - this is for unallocated seating in Circle only.
Box Office: Call in at Guildford Tourist Information Centre, or telephone the Box Office on 01483 444334 or book online at The
Tourist Information Centre or Rotary websites or through any of the schools
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English translation
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Kevin John
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19 Popular Song
Began to flatter, began to tease,
Lily O'Grady,
And she ran like the nymphs with golden foot
Silly and shady,
That trampled the strawberry, buttercup root,
Longing
to be
In the thick gold dew as bright as the mesh
A lazy lady,
Walked by the cupolas, gables in the Lake’s
Georgian stables,
Of dead Panope’s golden flesh.
Made from the music whence were born
Memphis and Thebes in the first hot morn,
In a fairy tale like the heat intense,
And the mist in the woods when across the
fence
—And ran to wake
In the lake,
Where the water ripples seem hay to rake.
The children gathering strawberries
And Charlotine, Adeline,
Are changed by the heat into negresses,
Round rose-bubbling Victorine,
Though their fair hair
And the other fish Express a wish
Shines there
For mastic mantles and gowns with a swish;
Like gold haired planets, Calliope, lo,
And bright and slight as the posies
Pomona, Antiope, Echo and Clio.
Of buttercups and of roses,
Then Lily O'Grady,
And buds of the wild wood-lilies.
Silly and shady,
They chase her, as frisky as fillies.
Sauntered along like a
The red retriever-haired satyr
Lazy Lady:
Beside the waves' haycocks her gown with
tucks
Was of satin the colour of shining green ducks,
And her folderol
Can whine and tease her and flatter,
But Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
In the deep shade is a lazy lady;
Now Pompey'’s dead,
Parasol
Was a great gold sun o'er the haycocks shining,
But she was a negress black as the shade
Homer's read,
Heliogabalus lost his head,
And shade is on the brightest wing,
That time on the brightest lady laid.
Then a satyr, dog-haired as trunks of trees,
2
And dust forbids the bird to sing.
20 Fox-Trot: ‘Old Sir Faulk’
Old Sir Faulk, __
‘Sally, Mary, Mattie, what's the matter, why
Tall as a stork, __
cry?
Before the honeyed fruits of dawn were ripe,
The huntsman and the Reynard-coloured sun
would walk,
and | sigh;___
And stalk with a gun__
‘Oh, the nursery, maid Meg
The Reynard-coloured sun,
With a leg like a peg__
Among the pheasant-feathered corn the unicorn
Chased the feathered dreams like hens, and
has torn, forlorn the
when they laid an egg
Smock-faced sheep__
In the sheep-skin
Sit And Sleep;__
Meadows
Periwigged as William and Mary, weep
Vivace Chorus
2
Where
continues overleaf
17
The serene King James would steer___
Would beg three of these for the nursery teas__
Horse and hounds, then he
Of Japhet, Shem and Ham; she gave it
From the shade of atree ___
Underneath the trees,
Picked it up as spoil to boil for nursery tea,’ said
Where the boiling
the mourners. In the
Water, the boiling
Cormn, towers strain, ___
Water
Feathered tall as a crane, __
Hissed, __
And whistling down the feathered rain, old Noah
Like
goes again—
feathered daughter — kissed,
An old dull mome_
Pot and pan and copper kettle
With a head like a pome,
Put upon their proper mettle,
goose-king’s
feathered
daughter,
Lest the Flood — the Flood — the Flood begin
Seeing the world as a bare egg,
Laid by the feathered air; Meg
the
2
again through these,__ again through these!
21 Sir Beelzebub
When
Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid
Sir
With cold vegetation from pale deputations
Beelzebub
Of
called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Memoriam)
Where Proserpine first fell,
Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate’s feet,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the
(Moving in classical metres)...
sea,
Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the
temperance
workers
(all
signed
In
(Rocking and shocking the barmaid).
Roof, and the sea'’s blue wooden gendarmerie
Nobody comes to give him his rum but the
Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for
Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum
his rum.
Enhances the chances to bless with a benison
...None of them come!
Texts from 'Facade' by Dame Edith Sitwell. Words reprinted from
Edith Sitwell's 'Facade and other Poems 1920-1935%'
by permission of the publishers Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Licensed by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
18
Vivace Chorus
Constant Lambert The Rio Grande (1927)
Lambert presents a cautionary tale of one to whom great early success
came easily, but whose career ended prematurely in broken
relationships, troubled alcoholism and the bitter awareness of wasting
himself, in more ways than one. The early triumph in question was The
Rio Grande, written with astounding audacity and assurance at the age
of 23. The sensation it caused can best be grasped in two ways: first, it
landed like a bombshell on a compositional scene still cautiously edging
towards a national identity through assimilation of folk song. The
masterly union between jazz and a wicked extension of the timehonoured oratorio tradition must have come as a sort of giant aesthetic
raspberry — not unlike Lambert himself. It also points to the flavour of the
times: facetious, nonchalant, hungry for the exotic, yet ultimately very
self-conscious.
Secondly, there is the text. There once existed, wrote Lambert,
‘.. a French translation by myself, which makes considerably more
sense than the original English, if | may say so’. But Sacheverell,
arguably the most original of the three Sitwells, was to raise travel writing
to an almost poetic art form, on a level with, say, the books of Patrick
Leigh Fermor. Travel was, by our standards, startlingly cheap, and
available to the only modestly gilded of Bloomsbury: the likes of Lambert,
Cyril Connolly, the Sitwells, Lord Berners or Peter Quennell seem to
have drifted serenely between the South of France, Amalfi, Toledo and
other parts of Italy and Spain. Lambert and Sitwell were thus able to
purvey a credible escapism rooted in real experience. No wonder
premiere headlines screamed ‘Queen’s Hall in a Frenzy!".
Sitwell transplanted Latin Europe to Latin America. The setting is a busy
seaport on carnival day. Although Brazil is mentioned, the sense of
location is otherwise hazier, catching the whiff of the banana republic but
also New Orleans/Mardi Gras to the North. There is no intrinsic reason
for a jazz element: the poem is simply a convenient vehicle. The pianist
Angus Morrison recalled, "It was always Constant's idea that the solo
piano should be like the ‘I of a novel reflecting upon the varied episode
...and binding them into one subjective experience" (the reason for the
lengthy piano cadenza in the middle).
The Rio Grande was originally scored for piano solo, chorus and
orchestra without woodwind, with a brief alto solo at the end of the work
which ultimately hovers like a disembodied memory of all that has been
seen and heard.
© Francis Pott
Vivace Chorus
19
The Rio Grande - poem by Sacheverell Sitwell
By the Rio Grande
They dance no sarabande
On level banks like lawns above the glassy, lolling tide;
Nor sing they forlorn madrigals
Whose sad note stirs the sleeping gales
Till they wake among the trees and shake the boughs,
And fright the nightingales;
But they dance in the city, down the public squares,
On the marble pavers with each colour laid in shares,
At the open church doors loud with light within.
At the bell's huge tolling,
By the river music, gurgling, thin
Through the soft Brazilian air.
The Comendador and Alguacil are there
On horseback, hid with feathers, loud and shrill
Blowing orders on their trumpets like a bird's sharp bill
Through boughs, like a bitter wind, calling
They shine like steady starlight while those other sparks are failing
In burnished armour, with their plumes of fire,
Tireless while all others tire.
The noisy streets are empty and hushed is the town
To where, in the square, they dance and the band is playing;
Such a space of silence through the town to the river
That the water murmurs loud
Above the band and crowd together;
And the strains of the sarabande,
More lively than a madrigal,
Go hand in hand
Like the river and its waterfall
As the great Rio Grande rolls down to the sea.
Loud is the marimba's note
Above these half-salt waves,
And louder still the tympanom,
The plectrum and the kettle-drum,
Sullen and menacing
Do these brazen voices ring.
They ride outside,
Above the salt-sea's tide.
Till the ships at anchor there
Hear this enchantment,
Of the soft Brazilian air,
By those Southern winds wafted,
Slow and gentle,
Their fierceness tempered
By the air that flows between.
20
Vivace Chorus
Francis began his musical life as a
chorister at New College, Oxford. He held
an open music scholarship at Winchester
College and then at Magdalene College,
Cambridge, where he studied composition
with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood
while also pursuing piano studies privately
in London with the distinguished British
artist, Hamish Milne.
Throughout the 1990s Francis was John
Bennett Lecturer in Music at St Hilda's
College, Oxford, and also a lay clerk in
the Choir of Winchester Cathedral. In
2001 he became Head of London College
leading
of Music, University of West London, later
Research across the institution’s wider Faculty of Arts and
acceding in 2007 to the University’s first ever Chair in Composition; he
also holds the M.A. and postgraduate Mus.B. degrees of the University
of Cambridge, a Fellowship of London College of Music (FLCM) and a
Ph.D.
Francis prefers to see himself as one of a long line of composer-pianists
for whom advanced pianism is a means to another end, and less as a
‘career’ performer; he regards playing as merely one among many
manifestations of “being a musician”. Nonetheless, he has been heard
several times playing his own piano music on BBC Radio 3, has
participated in a number of commercial CD recordings and has appeared
at prestigious venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall. He treasures the
review of an Oxford critic who in the 1980s dubbed him “a pianist
possessed by a thousand devils’ after a performance of Liszt's Dante
Sonata, seemingly with approval. He has done his best to live up —
or down — to this ever since. In demand as a soloist and accompanist, he
has also maintained piano duo partnerships with Roger Owens and
Jeremy Filsell, the latter his predecessor as accompanist to Vivace and a
brilliant exponent of his organ compositions over the past 30 years.
Vivace Chorus
21
Hamish Klintworth — Treble
Hamish Klintworth has been a member of
Guildford Cathedral Boys Choir since 2008
and is a senior chorister in the choir. He is
now in demand as a soloist having started his
solo career in the Netherlands in 2011
performing one of the pickled boys in
Benjamin Britten’s St Nicolas. Since then, he
has performed the treble solo from the
Bernstein Chichester Psalms with Southern
Voices at the Church of the Holy Cross in
Winchester in March 2013 and was invited
back to the same venue by Southern Voices
in December 2013 to perform a treble solo in
Benjamin Britten’s A Boy was Born. Solo performances with the Cathedral
Choir include Benjamin Britten's For | will consider my cat Jeoffrey and the
treble solo from Michael Tippett's canticles Collegium Sancti Johannis.
Hamish sang with the choir for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in 2011
and has twice performed under John Rutter conducting the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra. Later this year he will be touring with the Cathedral
Choir in the USA and performing the treble solo in Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Last year Hamish recorded a CD of Christmas music with the Cathedral
Choir.
Hamish, aged 13, is a pupil at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford where
he studies the piano, violin and euphonium and plays in the junior
orchestra, as well as enjoying rugby, hockey and shooting. It is notable that
Hamish suffers from asthma.
Angharad Lyddon - Contralto
Angharad Lyddon is from Wrexham, North
Wales. She has Bachelor's and Master’s
degrees from the Royal Academy of Music
and now studies on the Academy Opera
Course.
Angharad has been a soloist at cathedrals
and concert halls around the country
including a concert of Bach Cantatas with
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bach's Christmas
Oratorio in Kristiansand, Norway and
concerts at the Wigmore Hall.
Angharad was a Jerwood Young Artist at
22
Vivace Chorus
Glyndebourne in 2013 where she created the role of Panthea in Luke
Styles' opera Wakening Shadow. She has also sung Filipjevna in
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for RAO, Third Lady in Mozart’'s The Magic
Flute for Jackdaws, the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo
ed Euridice, Lucretia in Britten’'s Rape of Lucretia, Older Woman in
Jonathan Dove’s Flight for Academy Vocal Faculty Scenes and Lady Mary
in Sir Nigel of Tilford for Laurence Cummings and the Tilford Bach Society.
Angharad is grateful for the support of the Countess of Munster Musical
Trust, the Josephine Baker Trust and the Sickle Foundation.
Lancelot Nomura — Reciter
Bass Lancelot is currently studying on the
Opera Course at the Royal Academy of
Music under the guidance of Mark
Wildman and Audrey Hyland. This year he
was awarded the Opera Prize at the
National Mozart Singing Competition and
the year's other operatic highlights have
included performing in Billy Budd with the
Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, playing the
role
of
Zuniga
in
Bizet's Carmen at
Woodhouse Opera, and the role of Le Roi
in
Massenet’'s
Cendrillon with
Royal
Academy Opera.
Lancelot went to Rugby School, where he held a Music Scholarship as a
cellist, following which he completed his undergraduate studies at Oxford,
where he was a Scholar at Christ Church College. After graduating he
began a career in investment banking at J.P. Morgan, whilst continuing to
study singing with vocal coach Robert Alderson.
Lancelot is also in demand as an oratorio and concert soloist of which
recent and future highlights include performances of the Verdi Requiem, the
Mozart Requiem, Bach’'s St John Passion, and Rossini's Petite Messe
Solennelle, as well as a successful solo recital series, including
performances in London, Oxford and Tokyo, being of half Japanese
heritage.
Lancelot is very grateful for the kind support of the Sainsbury’s Trust,
Sophie’s Silver Lining Fund, the Josephine Baker Trust and the Seary
Trust.
Vivace Chorus is grateful to The Josephine Baker Trust
for sponsorship this evening of
Angharad Lyddon and Lancelot Nomura
Vivace Chorus
23
.
Jeremy
Backhouse
musical
career
Cathedral,
where
began
his
in
Canterbury
he
was
Head
Chorister, and later studied music at
Liverpool
University.
He
spent
5 years as Music Editor at the Royal
National
Institute
of
Blind
People
(RNIB), where he was responsible for
the transcription of print music into
Braille.
In
1986
he
joined
EMI
Records as a Literary Editor and from
April 1990 combined his work as a
Consultant Editor for EMI Classics and later Boosey & Hawkes Music
Publishers with his career as a freelance conductor.
In
January
1995,
Jeremy
was
appointed
Chorus
Master
and
subsequently Music Director of the Vivace Chorus (then the Guildford
Philharmonic
ambitious
Choir).
Jeremy
programmes,
has
including
presented
and
Howell's
Hymnus
conducted
some
Paradisi
and
Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony (No. 2),
Vaughan Wiliams’ A Sea Symphony, Mendelssohn's ‘Lobgesang’
(Symphony No. 2), Prokofiev’'s Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible,
and, most recently, Mahler's ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ (No. 8) in the
Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Major classical
popular works have included Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Verdi's
Requiem and Haydn's The Creation.
Since 1980, Jeremy has been the conductor of the Vasari Singers,
acknowledged
as one of the finest chamber choirs
in the country,
performing music from the Renaissance to contemporary commissions.
Jeremy
is
totally
committed
to
contemporary
music
and
to
the
commissioning of new works. He and Vasari have commissioned over
20 works in their recent history, and this enthusiasm has spread to the
Vivace Chorus who, in May 2009, performed the premiere of their first
commission — local composer Will Todd's Te Deum.
Jeremy has also worked with a number of the country's leading choirs,
including the Philharmonia Chorus, the London Choral Society and the
Brighton Festival Chorus. For 6 years, to the end of 2004, Jeremy was
the Music Director of the Wooburn Singers, following Richard Hickox and
Stephen
Jackson.
In
January
2009,
Jeremy was
appointed
Music
Director of the Salisbury Community Choir.
24
Vivace Chorus
the
SBrantenlolire
sinfonia
Artistic Director — Robert Porter
Associate Music Director — Sarah Tenant-Flowers
The Brandenburg Sinfonia is one of the most dynamically versatile
musical organisations in the country. It is renowned for its special quality
of sound and poised vivacity in performance. The orchestra performs
regularly in the majority of the major venues across the country, and in
London at the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall,
Fairfield Halls and St John's, Smith Square. The Brandenburg Sinfonia is
also in great demand abroad and has visited France, USA, Bermuda, the
Channel Islands, Barbados, Russia, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong. In
1999 the orchestra established major concert series at both St Martin-in-
the-Fields and Crystal Palace Bowl.
A large number of artists of international standing have worked with the
orchestra including Emanuel Hurwitz, Lesley Garrett, John Georgiadis,
John Wallace, Michael Thompson and Gordon Hunt. Its repertoire
ranges from Bach to Lloyd Webber and its members give around 100
performances of orchestral, chamber, choral and operatic music during
the year. The orchestras for a number of touring companies are formed
from members of the Brandenburg Sinfonia including First Act Opera,
London City Opera, Opera Holland Park, London Opera Players and
Central Festival Opera.
Violin 1
Mihkel Kerem
Viola
Matthew Quenby
Stephen Bryant
Rob Yeomans
Sarah
Jon Thorne
Frances Kefford
Toby Deller
Victoria Barnes
Adrian Bradbury**
Wolstenholme
Non Peters
Violin 2
Ciaran McCabe
James Widden
Helena Nicholls
Rachel Rowntree
Cello
Flute
Michael Cox**
Clarinet
Tom Lessels**
s
Foit
S::(:hpJ:st**
.
.
lan Ward**
Harriet Wiltshire
Timpani
Tim Evans
David Ayre
Socltthwaier
Sarah Stuart
Bass
Lawrence Ungless
Harp
Vicky Lester
Percussion
Tim Gunnell**
Trumpet
Paul Archibald**
Jon Clarke
Heidi Bennett
Jo Harris
Trombone
Susan White
Emma Juliet
Hodgson
Dougall Prophet
Tuba
Martin Knowles
Tim Palmer
** also playing in the Fagade ensemble
Vivace Chorus
&5
Vivace Chorus
Music Director: Jeremy Backhouse
Accompanist: Francis Pott
Chairman: James Garrow
Vivace Chorus has two aims: to make
music of the highest standard and to
have fun while doing so.
The choir has come a long way since it
began over 60 years ago as the
Guildford Philharmonic Choir, gaining
over time an enviable reputation for
performing first-class concerts across a
wide range of musical repertoire.
Since 1995, the choir has thrived under the exceptional leadership of our
Music Director, Jeremy Backhouse, ably supported now by Francis Pott.
Jeremy’s passion for choral works and his sheer enthusiasm for musicmaking are evident at every rehearsal and every performance, and
Francis is not just a very fine rehearsal accompanist but is also a
composer of international repute and a concert pianist in his own right;
indeed he is our soloist this evening.
We relish the opportunity to
unusual
more
perform
works such as Mahler's
or
8,
No.
Symphony
Alexander
Prokofiev’s
Nevsky as much as the
great choral masterpieces
of Verdi, Bach, Brahms,
Handel or Haydn. At a more
intimate level, we are at
home with the works of
. Fauré, Tavener, Allegri or
Contemporary
Lauridsen.
B
music is an important feature of the repertoire and our ‘Contemporary
Choral Classics’ series is designed both to challenge the choir and to
promote the classics of the future.
Particular successes have included a sell-out performance in May 2011
of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’, at the
Vivace Chorus
26
Royal Albert Hall, to which we return for the last concert in this season’s
programme, and a highly acclaimed performance in November 2012 of
Britten’s War Requiem. Following our full house debut at ‘G Live’ in
March that year with A Night at the Opera, this first-rate concert hall was
packed again for our Elgar concert in March 2013.
For our final concert in the 2012/3 season, part of our Contemporary
Choral Classics series, we were joined by the Farnham Youth Choir in
Rutter's Mass of the Children and also sang Chilcott's Requiem, which
we performed again in January this year in the beautiful setting of
St Martin-in-the-Fields.
We began this season’s varied programme with a concert last November
of contrasting works by Haydn and Jenkins, and will end it with another
grand-scale Royal Albert Hall production, this time of the ever-popular
Verdi Requiem.
In addition to our own concerts, we also sing in various charity concerts,
including the Mayor of Guildford’s annual Carol Concert, and with our
stalwart supporters, the Brandenburg Sinfonia, we sing each year in one
of London’s most popular concert venues, St Martin-in-the-Fields.
We also, on occasion, venture further afield. We have visited Germany
many times over the years to sing with the Freiburg Bachchor. Other
trips abroad have included a tour, in June 2009, of north-west France
when we sang in the cathedrals of Paris (Notre-Dame), Rouen and
Beauvais, while in June 2012 we headed across France to Strasbourg,
giving concerts also in Germany, in Heidelberg and Freiburg. We are off
on our travels again this summer, this time to Italy, where we will give
three concerts, in Verona, Mantua (Mantova) and Venice.
If that whets your appetite, do come
f
and join us! New members are always £
welcome. We rehearse in Holy Trinity
Church, Guildford High Street, on
Monday evenings. Just turn up (before
7.15), or contact our membership
secretary
Jane
Brooks
at
membership@vivacechorus.org.
For
further
information,
visit
our
website, vivacechorus.org, where you can also sign up to receive
information about our concerts, email us at info@vivacechorus.org or
follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
Vivace Chorus
27
Vivace Chorus Singers
FIRST SOPRANO
Polly Andrews
Helen Beevers
Joanna Bolam
Mary Broughton
Elaine Chapman
Rachel Edmondson
Rebecca Kerby
Mo Kfouri
Alex Nash
Susan Norton
Robin Onslow
Margaret Parry
Kate Rayner
Gillian Rix
Carol Terry
Joan Thomas
Hilary Vaill
SECOND
SOPRANO
Jacqueline Alderton
Ginny Heffernan
Krystyna Marsden
Isabel Mealor
Debbie Morton
Alison Newbery
Alison Palmer
Gillian Palmer
Kate Peters
Isobel Rooth
Rosemary Spalding
Paula Sutton
Christine Wilks
Frances Worpe
28
FIRST ALTO
Barbara Barklem
Penny Baxter
Monika Boothby
Jane Brooks
Liz Durning
Kate Emerson
Valentina Faedi
Atalia Fuller
Sheila Hodson
Jean Leston
Judith Lewy
Lois McCabe
Clare McKinlay
Kay McManus
Christine Medlow
Rosalind Milton
Mary Moon
Penny Muray
Gill Perkins
Lesley Scordellis
Catherine
Shacklady
Carol Sheppard
Ann Smith
Marjory Stewart
Hilary Trigg
Maggie Woolcock
SECOND ALTO
Geraldine Allen
Evelyn Beastall
Sylvia Chantler
Mary Clayton
Celia Embleton
Elizabeth Evans
Margaret
Grisewood
Barbara Hilder
Carol Hobbs
Beth Jones
Margaret Mann
Val Morcom
Pamela Murrell
Jacqueline
Norman
Beryl Northam
Sheila Rowell
Prue Smith
Jo Stokes
Rosey Storey
Pamela Usher
Anne Whitley
Anna Williams
June Windle
Elisabeth Yates
FIRST TENOR
Mike Bishop
Bob Bromham
Nick Manning
Martin Price
Chris Robinson
John Trigg
SECOND TENOR
John Bawden
Tony Chantler
Geoff Johns
Stephen Linton
FIRST BASS
Phil Beastall
John Britten
Richard Broughton
Michael Golden
Brian John
Jeremy Johnson
Eric Kennedy
Jon Long
Malcolm Munt
Chris Newbery
Adrian Oxborrow
Chris Peters
Robin Privett
David Ross
Philip Stanford
Kieron Walsh
SECOND BASS
Peter Andrews
Roger Barrett
Alan Batterbury
Norman Carpenter
Geoffrey Forster
James Garrow
Stuart Gooch
Nick Gough
Michael Jeffery
Neil Martin
Roger Penny
Clive Perry
Michael Taylor
Peter Norman
Jon Scott
John Thornely
Vivace Chorus
Rau h%w" Trast
e
Who or what are the Singing Cyclists?
Normally they use their lungs for the hushed tones of Fauré, belting out a
bit of Beethoven or enjoying Gershwin, but in a few weeks, a group of
singers from Vivace will be using that lung power to help them cycle over
200 miles from the Opéra in Paris to the Royal Albert Hall in London!
Why?
e To let everybody know about the performance of the Verdi
Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall on 18th May when over 400
voices will take to the stage.
The route was chosen because Verdi began writing this best-loved
and most-performed choral masterpiece in Paris; and its first
performance was at the Albert Hall.
e To raise money for The Rainbow Trust, a charity based in Surrey
that supports the families of children with life-limiting or life-ending
illness. We've chosen this charity because one of its users is our
great friend Will Todd, a composer with an international reputation
who lives in Guildford.
Please sponsor them and support the
Rainbow Trust by making a donation
to the Singing Cyclists at
www.virginmoneygiving.com/giving
(search for James Garrow) or follow
the link on vivacechorus.org — and we
look forward to seeing you at the
Albert Hall on Sunday 18" May!
Vivace Chorus
29
T Qfl’ ~ Jeremy Backhouse, conductor of the Guildford-based
The Armed Man & Mass in Time of War
From a review of Vivace Chorus's Nov 2013 concert
by Dr Steven Berryman
Vivace Chorus, never ceases to craft inferesting
programmes and last Saturday we were treated to the
pairing of Haydn and Karl Jenkins in a choral concert at Guildford Cathedral.
Haydn's Mass in Time of War is a work full of pride and positivity and the
Chorus sang with energy and purpose throughout; this was very detailed
singing with the 'scrambled’ chorus singing with superb diction and a broad
dynamic palette. The soloists, a team of aspiring young professionals,
complemented the choir well; soprano (Alice Rose Privett) sang with the Kyrie
with ease, and the rich timbre of alto (Angharad Lyddon) was powerful yet
blended well. The cello solo in the G&loria was controlled beautifully,
supporting the bass soloist (Bozidar Smiljanic). The chorus gave the Credo
vitality with precise entries, and a strong sound, which contrasted well with
the well-paced Sanctus that followed. The quartet of soloists excelled in the
Benedictus, and the whole work finished with the soloists, chorus and
orchestra in the compelling and powerful Agnus De/ and the ensuing
celebratory Dona nobis pacem.
Karl Jenkins Armed Man: A Mass for Peace was a superb partner to the
Haydn; both works are a response fo war and both have an optimistic
approach to peace through powerful and direct musical ideas. The choir
excelled here at showing real passion for delivering the relentless repetition
of Jenkin's music, supported by an orchestra that Backhouse conducted with
vigour and precision; the balance and blend of the whole work was always
judged with care throughout. This work of nearly an hour in length had a
narrative that was understood well by Backhouse, as he shaped the work
intelligently and with vivid changes of colour, particular in the Hosannas. The
soloists did much to bring the text to life in Now the guns have stopped, and
the cello again soared about the orchestra with the solo in Benedictus.
Better is Peace was vibrant and a real pleasure to hear, as was the beautiful
and peaceful close to the whole work.
Bravo to Vivace Chorus, soloists, orchestra and particularly Jeremy
Backhouse for an enjoyable evening that was more than a concert but
something that clearly touched many of the audience members with powerful
music performed by a powerful chorus.
30
Vivace Chorus
Vivace Chorus Patrons
The Vivace Chorus is extremely grateful to all patrons for their support.
Honorary Life Patrons:
Mr Bill Bellerby MBE
Dr John Trigg MBE
Mrs Doreen Bellerby MBE
Premier Patrons:
Dr Michael Golden
Robin & Penny Privett
Dr Marianne llisley
Platinum Patrons:
Mr & Mrs Stephen Arthur
Mr Laurie James
Dr Roger Barrett
Mrs Pamela Leggatt
Mr & Mrs Peter B P Bevan
Mr Lionel Moon
John & Barbara Britten
John & Janet McLean
Richard & Mary Broughton
Ron & Christine Medlow
Michael Dawe
Dr Roger Muray
Mr & Mrs G Dombrowe
Mr & Mrs John Parry
Mr & Mrs Joseph Durning
Dr & Mrs M G M Smith
Susan and Cecil Hinton
Idris Thomas
Mrs Carol Hobbs
Mrs Pamela Usher
Mrs Rita Horton
Bill & June Windle
Gold Patrons:
Robin & Jill Broadley
Mr & Mrs Maxwell S New
Roger & Sharon Brockway
Mrs Jean Radley
Jane Kenney
Sheila Rowell
Mr Geoffrey Johns
Brenda & Brian Reed
Dr Stephen Linton
Prue & Derek Smith
Silver Patrons:
Mrs Iris Bennett
Maggie van Koetsveld
Bob & Maryel Cowell
If you have enjoyed this concert, why not become one of our patrons?
We have a loyal band of followers whose regular presence at our
concerts is greatly appreciated. With the valued help of our patrons, we
are able to perform a wide range of exciting music, with world-class,
professional musicians in venues such as Guildford Cathedral, G Live
and the Royal Albert Hall. Patrons enjoy discounts of between 10% and
30% off concert tickets, reserved seating and priority booking for the best
seats for as little as £50pa. If you are interested, please contact Joan
Thomas on 01483 893178 or email: patrons@vivacechorus.org.
Vivace Chorus
31
Vivace Chorus dates for your diary
This season there’s only one more date to remember...
Sunday 18" May 2014
Verdi Requiem
7.30pm in the Royal Albert Hall
We'll be joined by the London Philharmonic Choir, the Wimbledon and
Twickenham Choral Societies, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and
four talented soloists, all under the baton of Jeremy Backhouse, to give
you what promises to be a thrilling live musical experience.
Do join us if you can!
Tickets, from as little as £8 up to £44, are available from
Michael Taylor at tickets@vivacechorus.org or 07958 519741
or
Online at www.royalalberthall.com or from the Box Office 020 7589 8212
The sooner you book, the better the choice of seats!
And the easiest way to get there?
Book a Guildford/Royal Albert Hall return coach seat for just £12
from Michael Taylor, as above.
What’s stopping you?
Further details of all Vivace performances at vivacechorus.org
or from info@vivacechorus.org
Registered Charity No. 1026337
Printed by WORDCRAFT
115 Merrow Woods, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2LJ
Tel: 01483 560735
32
Vivace Chorus
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orus.org
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turn coach from Guildford toe
tTl:aevsz))}I)a)xll r;flbert Hall — only £12! See page 3
OR(
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TONI(
RA
VIVACE CHORUS PRESENTS
VIVACE CHORUS — FASCINATIN
RHYTHM
Door:2
TIERED STALLS
SAT MAR 8, 2014 AT 7:30 PM
Row:J
FuLL PRICE
SEAT:20
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2:35::2339191
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llum-:a 14s MusST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT
London Road, Guildford, GU1 2AA
i?%é@gg:e?g; aik
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