What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part I)

What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part I)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
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13 October

What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part I)

On Friday 17 October at 7.30, Cambridge Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx) hosts the first in its annual Cambridge Classical Concert Series

The series opens with the excellent Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (@rpoonline), again as The Corn Exchange's Orchestra in Residence (reviewed here, at the end of the previous series (earlier in the year), when Nicholas Collon conducted them in an all-British programme of Elgar, Britten, and Vaughan Williams…)


The programme for Friday is as follows:


First half

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) : Manfred Overture (please see below for a more accurate title) [mainly written in 1848, but first performed in 1852]

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) : Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 [apparently written in July / August 1934, and first performed that November]


Second half

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) : Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 [more than fifty years earlier, in 1877, but otherwise as with the Rachmaninov : started in the summer, and first performed later that year – please see below]


Extra : Please look here for a further connection, of sorts, between Brahms and Rachmaninov (plus a plethora of other Opus Numbers !)…

This posting – much delayed by the exigencies of trying to write up The 34th Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest) – looks essentially at the reasons why we have the Overture as an isolated piece, whereas those about the Brahms is now linked here, and about the Rachmaninov here, are more personal responses (plus some more music history)


If one stops to investigate the phenomenon, it is remarkable that some pieces achieve a life beyond the work for which they were written :

Not so much in the case of a lovely aria, such as the famous ‘Erbarme dich’ (in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, BWV 244) or Gluck’s equally well-known ‘Che farò senza Euridice’ (from his Orfeo ed Euridice (from 1762)), where it is obvious that the strength of the writing has given birth to a lovely expression of feeling – although it is probably still best understood (first of all, at least) in context.

No. One has in mind, say, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 – or, as the Germans more style it, Ouvertüre zu Coriolan (Overture to Coriolan). The question of naming apart (though as true of the Manfred Overture in this concert), the music was written in 1807 for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's drama Coriolan.

Here, nothing suggests that there was any other incidental music. The complete works of von Collin (Gesammelte Werke, in six volumes) appeared between 1812 and 1814, and are still in print (so presumably still studied), but what really seems to survive with any life is the Overture*.


In the case of Schubert**, maybe his incidental music to Rosamunde*** (Op. 26, D. 797) has survived a little better. Yet the production, withdrawn after two nights, scarcely deviated from his other general lack of success in writing for the stage. Regarding this programme’s piece by Robert Schumann, it is, yet again, an extract – seemingly surviving largely on its own.

The ‘Overture’ is taken from Manfred : Dramatic Poem (with Music) in Three Parts (in the original German, Manfred. Dramatisches Gedicht in drei Abtheitungen), Op. 115, and is a setting of the dramatic work of that name by George, Lord Byron (published in 1817), mainly written in 1848.

Pictured is the title-page of the edition of Manfred that was prepared by Clara Schumann, Robert’s wife (and then widow), and it indicates that it had pretensions to be amongst his greater vocal works. Despite Hugo Wolf’s apparent appreciation for Manfred (Wolf lived from 1860 to 1903), its availability as a score (although modern scores are of the 'Overture' alone) and even as a recording, and the fact that academics are still writing about it (and, inevitably – it appears – with Schumann, his mental state at the time of writing it), the focus remains this ‘Overture’.

Curious creature, @thekatiederham - in introducing Lunchtime Concert, interchangeably pronounced Wolf as if written Wölf, @onradio3now...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 12, 2014

Can I guess, though, that Schoenberg may creatively become Schonenberg, @thekatiederham @onradio3now... ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 12, 2014

The result, seemingly, is that the whole Manfred is not allowed to stand alongside compositions such as Liederkreis, Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben (all earlier, being from 1840).


So it is does not even seem, after all, that this 'Overture' was separated from its musical home quite in the same way as for the other works considered above : they were attached to something that has not really survived, whereas this piece, by being picked out as the best part, has been severed from the body of Manfred and kept alive before us on the concert platform...


End-notes

* Likewise, to stay with Beethoven, his score to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 – the Overture is certainly in the concert repertoire, but what about the rest of the score (maybe only on Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3), where it has been broadcast), let alone the ballet itself ?

** If one does not check, Schubert (1797–1828) may seem more contemporary with Schumann (1810–1856) than with Beethoven, but Schubert’s life in fact much overlapped with that of Beethoven (1770–1827), since Schubert died before he was 32, and Schumann lived for more than 25 years beyond him. (As is well known, Schubert both felt himself in Beethoven’s shadow (as did Brahms (1833–1897), and was one of the great man’s torch-bearers.)

*** In full, the play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern [Countess of Cyprus], by Helmina von Chézy.


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Nicholas Collon conducts at Cambridge Corn Exchange

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23 May

Apologies that, at the time of the Vaughan-Williams-focused preview of this concert at Cambridge’s Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx), it was overlooked that The Royal Philarmonic Orchestra (@rpoonline) is the Orchestra in Residence.


Under the baton of rising conductor Nicholas Collon (increasingly guesting with big orchestras, as well continuing The Aurora Orchestra), we had a programme of Britten, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams. (And the RPO return next season with highlights such as Stravinsky’s Suite* from The Firebird, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2…)


Four Sea Interludes – Benjamin Britten

The programme note tells us that Britten resembled Stravinsky*, in conducting the Interludes as a separate entity days after Peter Grimes’ premiere.

Titled ‘Dawn’, ‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Moonlight’, and ‘Storm’, they evoke not only moods, which crucially punctuate the opera, but also a location in time and space : Collon was wisely unhurried with ‘Dawn’, not led on by its beautiful surface appeal, and getting an unfussy, clean, but sweet, sound from the RPO – allowing the resonant brass and rumble, as of swell, both to contrast with the rest of the ensemble, and come together.

In the next portrait, the cross-beats and near-dissonances were a delight, with the chromatic slide excitingly brought off, and filling the moment both with energy, and that trio of bell-notes, doom, and dread. ‘Moonlight’ was again controlled, daringly awaiting those fresh piercings of light from space : yet the xylophone that – with the harp – captures them ends with tortured motifs against the strings.

Finally, Collon built not the noisiest ‘Storm’, but with the strong natural suggestion of possibly going higher. He brought out the laughter in the brass, and ended crisply and exactly. A refreshing first course !



Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 – Edward Elgar

Another work (as the symphony is) in four movements, but a good contrast with the Britten, because of the different emotive qualities of the solo cello part, not least under Guy Johnston (who was playing because of Julian Lloyd Webber’s unlucky forced retirement), who, amongst other things, expressively brought to this well-known work :


* Pacing, and an inward interpretation, of the first main theme, but reaching out for brighter things, and bring it back with electricity

* Unforced string-tone, and a plaintive, guitaristic feel to plucking strings

* A teasing tremolo, as if of a young animal playing

* A lightness of touch in sustained passage-work

* Singing, not shouting, the famous melody-line, with Johnston leaning into the instrument, as if hearing the music within it

* Moments of quiet, leading to a different mode of projection, where some single notes just spoke volumes

* The physicality, and swaying, of playing after a theme that felt full of weariness and preoccupation

* A sense of rumination, and ending with a voice resolved to follow its own counsel before reprising the main theme and a momentary tutti at the close



Symphony No. 3 [no stated key, and first entitled A Pastoral Symphony] – Ralph Vaughan Williams

At the outset, a light, floral feel is weighted by the bass, then joined by Vaughan Williams’ beloved obbligato violin. Nicely balanced playing and phrasing suggested the magical, yet tinged with something indefinably other. Collon ran the first two movements together, which, when the Molto moderato ends (after sensations of a gently drifting swell) with the moving, plangent reediness of the oboe, makes sense for introducing the horn sonority.

In the strings, Collon brought out hesitancy, uncertainty, which developed into an uneasy sense of anxiety. Whatever exactly the trumpet calls may mean, the pianissimo was pregnant, and reminded of the composer’s words (describing Boult’s conducting**) : it was a positive, sensitive pianissimo, full of meaning and tension.

Next, the Moderato pesante seems to break through the tension, rising to its lovely main theme, but Collon held course, allowing no slackness in the brass theme (accompanied by cymbals). Gloriously sonorous brass intervals then heralded the carol-like coda.

For the Lento finale, Collon had soprano Sally Harrison placed off stage, singing wordlessly in an unshowy but haunting way. After the well-located harp melody came feelings of richness, an excitement that gave way to tenderness, revisiting previous themes, and a soaring sense of pride. The song recurred, and the strings faded away.

However many knew this work, people seemed both quietly attentive to it and appreciative of the RPO and Collon’s skill.


End-notes

* Though unclear whether it is that from 1911, 1919, or 1945 (as Stravinsky, as an ambitious composer, was forever making arrangements).

** The final movement of Symphony No. 6.


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By way of an introduction to Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 (originally A Pastoral Symphony)

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22 May

Cambridge Corn Exchange is to be praised for giving us, in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 to-night, something out of the ordinary. For, despite Sir Adrian Boult’s still impressive recordings*, and championing by Andrew Manze (such as Boult did : he premiered this work) with Symphonies 4 to 6 at The Proms two years ago (and previously with The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), the knowledge of Vaughan Williams is not, where it should be, in people’s minds, and the music in their hearts.

The works speak for themselves, if given the opportunity, and it is the composers whose reputation needs championing, in fact. But we must beware of switching one orthodoxy about what was originally called A Pastoral Symphony (and, as with A London Symphony, only numbered later, as well as not seeming to be expressed to be in any key), which is now that it is a form of relection on war :

Perhaps we did not know, as Martin Furber’s brief sleeve-notes for the CD release of the Boult recording* tell us, that Vaughan Williams had served in France, and that it was there, in 1916, that he first made sketches for the symphony (A London Symphony had been first performed in 1914). The question is : does it add to, or detract from, the symphony to try to connect it to the war, since Vaughan Williams had stated that its predecessor was absolute music, and in 1920 suggested, in a prgramme note, that it might better be called Symphony by a Londoner.

By all means, we want to listen to what broadcaster Stephen Johnson says that he has researched about Vaughan Williams and his time, but, most of all, we want to listen to the music…


So here is a suggestion for those new to this symphony. If one had to pick out an instrument that is redolent of each of the symphony’s four movements (although Vaughan Williams always loves trombones and writes stunningly well for solo violin) they would be, respectively, oboe, trumpet, flute and harp (as well as human voice). See the contributions being made by each instrumentalist (vocalist) at the time, and hear where they fit into the whole, both the whole of the movement, and of the accruing piece, and what Vaughan Williams is expressing by them.


Listen hard, though, for Wikipedia informs us that ‘It is scored for a large orchestra including:

* Woodwinds: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets (in B♭ and A; 3rd doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons

* Brass: 4 horns (in F), 3 trumpets (in C, 1 doubling on natural Trumpet in E♭), 3 trombones, tuba

* Percussion: timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, celesta,

* Strings: harp, and strings.'


There is now an outline review of the concert, too, here


End-notes


* The one of this symphony, from 1952, with soprano Margaret Ritchie providing the wordless solo in the last movement and The London Philharmonic Orchestra takes some beating. Boult had given the premiere thirty years earlier (on 16 January 1922).

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)